WHERE  TOWN  AND 
NTRY  MEET 


ES  BUCKHAM 


IEGO 

III 
31822668165490 


LIBRARY 

UNIVE'  S  TY  OP 
CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIESO 


QH 


Central  University  Library 

University  of  California,  San  Diego 
Note:  This  item  is  subject  to  recall  after  two  weeks. 

Date  Due 


writ  11  Mfc 

I'AR  i  r 

Cl  39  (1/91) 


UCSD  Lib. 


WHERE   TOWN 

-AND- 

COUNTRY  MEET 


By 

JAMES  BUCKHAM 


CINCINNATI:     JENNINGS   AND    PYE 
NEW    YORK:     EATON   AND    MAINS 


COPYRIGHT,  1903,  BY 
JENNINGS     AND     PYE 


MOST  of  the  following  sketches  appeared 
originally  in  Zion's  Herald,  of  Boston,  to 
whose  editor,  Dr.  Charles  Parkhurst,  I  wish 
to  gratefully  acknowledge  my  indebtedness 
for  encouragement  and  assistance  in  the 
preparation  and  publication  of  this  volume. 
Thanks  are  also  due  to  the  following  period- 
icals for  the  privilege  of  reprinting  my  work 
from  their  columns :  the  New  York  Evening 
Post,  the  Boston  Transcript,  the  Sunday- 
School  Times,  and  Forest  and  Stream, 

JAMES  BUCKHAM. 
,  MASS.,  March  4,  igoj. 


CONTENTS 


INDIAN  SPRING,                                                  .  7 

ON  THE  EDGE  OF  SPRING,  16 

AN  EARLY  SPRING  WALK,                 -        -        -  23 

THE  WAKING  OF  THE  FISHES,    -  31 

IN  ANGLING  TIME,    -                        -        -        -  39 

SOME  HERMITS  OF  THE  MARSH,        -        -        -  46 

PILGRIMS  OF  THE  NIGHT,          -        -                -  55 

OPENING  CAMP,                 62 

BIRDS  FROM  A  SUBURBAN  WINDOW,          -        -  69 

BIRD-SONGS  INTERPRETED,         ....  78 

THE  Music  OF  BROOKS, 85 

A  Cup  IN  THE  HILLS,       -        ...  gz 

I\  THE  HEART  OF  THE  PINES,                  -        -  99 

MIDSUMMER  NIGHT  SOUNDS,     -                -        -  108 

COUNTRY  ROADS  IN  AUGUST,     -                -        -  116 

A  DOORSTEP  SINGER,                                         -  124 
5 


Contents 

PAGE 

ALONG  THE  LILY-PADS,     -       -       -  "    -       -  130 

SEPTEMBER  TRAMPS,          -  137 

THE  PATH  TO  JOE'S  POND,        -  145 

A  QUEST  OF  FALL  BERRIES,      -                -        -  152 

THE  AUTUMN  WOOD-PATH,                -        -        -  162 

UP  STERLING,    -                                -        -        -  170 

GETTING  READY  FOR  WINTER,          -        -        -  180 

BEYOND  THE  SNOW-PATH,  186 

THE  RECORD  OF  THE  SNOW,     -  195 

A  DAY  ON  THE  CRUST, 204 

ON  A  Fox  TRAIL,     -  212 

WINTER  WOODSMEN  AROUND  BOSTON,      -        -  220 

A  PNEUMATIC  CALENDAR,         ....  228 

WEATHER  COMPETITIONS,          ....  236 


WHERE  TOWN  AND 
COUNTRY  MEET 

* 

INDIAN  SPRING 

SOMETIMES  in  January,  oftener  toward 
the  close  of  February,  there  comes  to  our 
winter-bound  Northern  States  a  day  or  two, 
perhaps  a  week,  of  balmy,  springlike 
weather,  that  uncovers  the  brown  earth  and 
sets  the  streams  a-brawling,  and  makes  one 
think  that  verily  old  winter's  fetters  have 
been  broken.  The  sun  has  such  a  genial, 
steady  warmth,  and  the  south  or  southwest 
breeze  is  so  soft  and  caressing  and  assuring, 
that  even  some  premature  vegetation  starts 
up  in  the  sheltered  ditches  and  under  the 
swampy  lee  of  the  woods,  unfolding  its 
tender,  vivid  green  in  a  few  hours,  only  to 

7 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

be  smitten  by  returning  cold  erelong,  and 
stretched  withering  on  the  frost-hardened 
soil. 

Were  it  not  for  the  absence  of  the  wiser 
birds,  and  the  unnatural  silence  of  the  sunny 
air,  one  might  readily  mistake  this  brief  In- 
dian spring  for  the  first  week  in  April ;  but, 
except  for  the  short,  sharp  cries  or  chirps 
of  the  few  birds  that  winter  with  us,  the 
feathered  world  is  unresponsive  to  all  this 
unseasonable  warmth  and  balminess.  There 
is  no  sudden  northward  migration,  no  sound 
by  night  from  the  pilgrims  of  the  air.  This 
is  the  surest  sign  to  the  rambler  that  spring 
is  still  a  long  way  off,  and  he  need  cherish 
no  romantic  hopes  of  a  season  two  months 
in  advance  of  the  calendar.  Nevertheless, 
no  true  lover  of  nature  can  remain  indoors 
during  Indian  spring.  He  has  an  irresist- 
ible longing  to  go  forth  and  get,  at  least, 
a  foretaste,  a  suggestion,  of  the  April  that 
is  to  be.  There  is  actually  a  spicy  pleasure 
in  cheating  himself  by  appearances,  while 
all  the  time  shrewdly  reserving  the  knowl- 
edge that  the  semblance  is  not  real.  It  is 
much  the  same  kind  of  pleasure  that  a 
dreamer  might  have  in  his  dream,  were  his 
8 


Indian  Spring 

subconsciousness  strong  enough  to  per- 
ceive that  his  adventures  were  phantasmal 
and  transitory,  and  need  cause  him  no  anxi- 
ety or  moral  distress.  Indeed,  the  impres- 
sion of  tramping  through  April  scenes  in 
February  is  distinctly  dreamlike,  and  for 
that  very  reason  enchanting.  I  love  to 
spend  whole  days  in  this  deceptive  sun- 
shine, with  that  ever-present,  ghostly  con- 
sciousness of  being  translated  beyond  actual 
place  and  time — of  being,  in  fact,  a  partly- 
awake  somnambulist  in  the  night  of  the 
year.  It  gives  me  a  certain  shuddering 
delight  to  stand  doubtingly  in  April  sun- 
shine, walled  about  on  every  side  by  cliffs 
of  winter,  like  Rasselas  in  his  idyllic  val- 
ley. For  to-day,  at  least,  I  will  live  and 
think  as  if  spring  had  actually  come — only 
the  charm  of  it  will  be  the  more  delicate 
and  exciting,  because  I  know  (behind  my 
fancying)  that  winter  has  just  slipped  out 
for  a  moment,  and  will  presently  darken  the 
door  and  take  possession  of  the  house  again. 
Last  year  (1899),  in  Massachusetts  at 
least,  we  had  our  Indian  spring  in  the 
middle  of  January.  That  week  of  mild, 
sunny  weather,  beginning  with  the  I5th, 

9 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

is  still  gratefully  fresh  in  the  minds  of 
many  of  us,  no  doubt — particularly  the 
golfers,  who  were  out  in  force,  like  re- 
prieved prisoners,  tramping  the  snowless 
turf  of  the  links.  On  the  i/th,  with  the 
thermometer  in  the  50*3,  I  took  a  long  walk, 
out  through  Wollaston,  toward  the  Milton 
Hills.  The  warmth  of  the  sun  and  the  soft- 
ness of  the  air  were  simply  delicious,  and  I 
could  not  help  pitying  all  those  who  were 
shut  up,  on  so  fine  a  day,  in  offices,  stores, 
and  factories. 

On  the  edge  of  the  swamp  lying  just 
west  of  Wollaston  Heights,  I  startled  a 
small  flock  of  blue  jays,  three  or  four,  that 
went  screaming  away  into  the  depths  of 
the  woods.  Unless  disturbed,  the  bluejay 
is  usually  silent  at  this  season  of  the  year, 
his  loud,  metallic  cry  being  seldom  heard 
later  than  the  1st  of  December.  The  flicker, 
however,  whose  voice  I  presently  heard 
from  a  distant  pine-tree,  is  a  spring  prophet, 
and  in  pleasant  weather  may  be  heard  blow- 
ing his  bugle  over  the  winter  woods,  like 
a  clarion  call  to  the  sun.  His  note  at  this 
season  is  single,  strong,  and  resonant,  with 
a  reedy  quality,  something  like  the  tone  of 


Indian  Spring 

the  clarinet.  This  bird  is  noticeably  shyer 
in  winter  than  at  any  other  season,  and  will 
fly  long  before  you  can  get  near  him,  utter- 
ing, as  he  undulates  over  the  woods  or  fields, 
the  same  strident  note  that  first  announced 
his  presence. 

After  walking  about  a  mile,  I  came  to  a 
warm,  southward-facing  bank,  where  the 
roots  of  a  pine-tree  were  thrusting  up  above 
the  brown  earth,  like  withered  limbs  that 
had  thrown  off  the  bedclothing.  Glad  of 
a  chance  to  rest,  I  sat  down  on  one  of  the 
knees  of  the  old  tree,  and  gratefully  in- 
haled the  aromatic,  resinous  odor  that  filled 
the  air.  This  pine  smell  is  the  most  dis- 
tinctive and  appealing  of  wood  odors.  It 
lingers  longest  in  the  memory,  and  is  re- 
vived with  the  keenest  and  most  affecting 
pleasure.  How  strongly  the  resinous  fra- 
grance pours  forth  on  a  day  like  this,  when 
the  sun  opens  wide  the  pores  of  the  lusty 
tree!  Roots,  trunk,  and  foliage  all  exhale 
the  wholesome  odor,  and  it  streams  away 
on  the  air,  greeting  your  quickened  sense 
afar  off.  Nothing  like  a  whiff  of  pines  to 
call  up  out-door  memories!  It  is  the  most 
distinctive  aroma  of  the  woods,  a  divine 
ii 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

exhalation  penetrating  through  the  senses 
to  the  inmost  soul. 

A  little  distance  from  where  I  sat  rest- 
ing on  the  root  of  the  pine,  was  a  tumble- 
down, tangled  barbed-wire  fence,  over- 
grown by  the  long  vines  of  the  trailing 
green  brier.  The  strands  of  wire  and  the 
brier  vines  were  almost  indistinguishable, 
and  it  suddenly  occurred  to  me  that  here 
was  an  instance  of  the  natural  association 
of  type  and  prototype.  Approaching  closer, 
I  was  struck  by  the  remarkable  resemblance 
between  the  vines  and  the  wire.  The  latter 
was  just  about  the  same  size  as  the  former, 
and  bore  its  clusters  of  radiating  barbs  at 
precisely  the  same  intervals  as  the  thorns 
of  the  vines.  The  barbs  and  the  thorns 
were  arranged  similarly,  in  bunches  of  three 
or  four,  bristling  opposite  ways,  and  of 
about  the  same  size,  though  nature's  barbs 
were  the  neater  and  finer  and  sharper- 
pointed.  Surely,  I  thought,  man  must  have 
got  his  notion  of  the  barbed-wire  fence  from 
nature,  and  he  has  followed  his  model  so 
closely  that,  if  nature  were  allowed  patents, 
the  infringement  would  be  ground  for  legal 
action. 


Indian  Spring 

Beyond  the  golf  links,  on  a  hillside  where 
scattered  birches  and  scrub  pines  were 
growing,  I  came  upon  a  stunted  wild  apple- 
tree,  the  ground  under  which  was  thickly 
strewn  with  frozen  and  thawed  apples.  Im- 
mediately there  occurred  to  me  Thoreau's 
enthusiastic  praise  of  the  spicy  cider  of 
thawed  wild  apples.  Gathering  my  hands 
full  of  the  russet  fruit,  I  sat  down  upon  a 
rock  to  taste  this  primitive  nectar  (as  Tho- 
reau  recommends)  "in  the  wind."  It  was 
indeed  delicious — not  so  tart  and  bitter  as 
the  juice  of  the  wild  apple  in  its  sound  state, 
but  distinctly  sweetened  and  ameliorated  by 
the  frost;  a  kind  of  spicy  wild  wine,  inno- 
cent as  water,  refreshing  to  the  palate,  and 
wholesome  and  medicinal  to  the  entire  body. 
I  gathered  more  and  more  of  the  wild 
apples,  and  sucked  their  cool  nectar  until  my 
thirst  was  slaked.  It  was  a  real  discovery, 
this  new  winter  drink,  and  I  would  heartily 
pass  on  Thoreau's  recommendation  of  it  to 
other  ramblers. 

I  ate  my  noonday  lunch  by  a  spring  in 
the  Blue  Hills  Reservation,  and  then  kept 
on  across  that  vast  park  toward  the  Ob- 
servatory, standing  up  like  a  huge  excres- 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

cence  on  the  brow  of  the  highest  point  of 
land  in  sight. 

What  an  extent  of  wild  land  is  this,  on 
the  borders  of  Boston,  stretching  away  for 
miles  to  the  south  and  southwest,  as  remote 
and  uncultivated  as  New  Hampshire  pas- 
tures (save  for  an  occasional  roadway  or 
placard),  and  as  free  to  all  of  the  ram- 
bling tribe!  It  affords  a  deep  and  grate- 
ful refuge  for  the  birds,  and  in  a  few  months 
now  will  be  thickly  peopled  by  all  our  native 
songsters. 

I  saw  there,  on  that  day  in  mid- January, 
representatives  of  nearly  all  our  wintering 
birds — the  chickadees,  nuthatches,  downy 
and  hairy  woodpeckers,  flickers,  jays,  bunt- 
ings, winter  wrens  and  pine  finches,  and, 
along  the  turnpike,  some  English  sparrows. 
Indian  spring  had  brought  them  all  out 
from  the  deeper  coverts,  and  set  them  to 
foraging  hopefully  for  food.  Their  feeble, 
tinkling  chirps  and  rustling  flight  attracted 
my  attention  everywhere,  and  it  was  easy  to 
imagine  what  a  bird  garden  the  Reservation 
would  be  when  May  came  north  with  her 
retinue  of  songsters. 

The  only  disagreeable  feature  of  ram- 
14 


Indian  Spring 

bling  in  the  Reservation  is  the  conscious 
espionage  of  the  mounted  police,  who  patrol 
the  park  at  all  seasons  of  the  year.  Of 
course,  one  does  not  like  to  have  one's 
motive  suspected  while  engaged  in  this  de- 
vout processional  or  peripatetic  worship  of 
nature.  Yet  the  police  are,  doubtless,  nec- 
essary to  enforce  the  regulations  of  the  park 
commissioners  and  protect  the  timber  and 
wild  creatures  in  the  Reservation.  One 
wishes  they  might  be  invisible  wardens, 
however — visible  only  to  the  wrongdoer, 
and  relentless  upon  his  trail  as  some  four- 
footed,  or  indeed  six-footed,  Nemesis. 

My  walk  circumscribed  a  section  of  coun- 
try about  eight  miles  in  diameter,  and  was 
a  fairly  good  day's  work  for  one  pair  of 
legs.  But  I  would  gladly  repeat  it,  should 
we  have  a  taste  of  Indian  spring  this  year. 
It  furnished  me  with  an  inextinguishable 
appetite  for  some  days,  and  at  least  a  week's 
supply  of  keen,  swinging  energy  for  work. 
I  do  not  know  how  I  could  have  got  better 
returns  from  so  small  an  investment  of  time 
in  any  other  venture. 


ON  THE  EDGE  OF  SPRING 

SOME  one  has  said  that  expectation  is  to 
realization  what  flower  is  to  fruit;  the  first 
yields  a  finer  fragrance,  the  second  a  more 
satisfying  sustenance.  If  this  be  true — and 
to  whom  does  it  not  commend  itself? — how 
thankful  we  should  be  that  we  receive,  with 
most  of  our  blessings,  the  possibility  of  both 
enjoyments!  The  coming  event  casts,  not 
its  shadow,  but  its  brightness,  before.  (How 
many  of  our  proverbs  ought  to  be  amended 
by  restating  them  from  the  optimistic 
standpoint!) 

The  expectation  of  spring  is  one  of  the 
most  delicate  and  truly  fragrant  delights 
possible  to  a  healthy  mind  and  body.  The 
genius  of  the  season  is  itself  anticipatory; 
its  atmosphere  is  elate,  prophetic,  suggest- 
ive, inviting.  More  than  that  of  any  other 
season,  the  charm  of  spring  is  elusive  and 
alluring.  It  has  that  fine,  spiritual,  ungrasp- 
able  quality  that  belongs  to  the  best  music 
16 


On  the  Edge  of  Spring 

and  poetry.  Spring  is  the  beckoner  among 
the  seasons.  We  never  quite  get  hold  of  her 
hand,  as  we  do  of  Summer's,  and  Autumn's, 
and  particularly  Winter's.  Our  wooing  of 
her  is  ever  the  delight  of  pursuit.  All  her 
kisses  are  blown  to  us. 

To  me,  the  most  ethereal  and  delicious 
moment  of  this  pursuit  of  spring  is  the 
time  when,  as  we  say,  spring  is  first  "in 
the  air."  The  expectation  of  the  new,  bud- 
ding year  is  never  quite  so  thrilling,  so 
transporting — Thoreau  calls  it  "exciting" — 
as  then.  That  first  changing  of  the  air,  in 
late  February  and  early  March,  from  the 
winter  quality  to  the  spring  quality — have 
you  not  remarked  it  with  all  your  senses, 
and  been  mysteriously  and  irresistibly  elated 
and  exalted  thereby,  as  if  body  and  soul 
were  suddenly  set  in  perfect  tune  with  the 
music  of  the  spheres?  And  that  earliest 
whiff  of  the  soil — is  there  any  perfume  to 
compare  with  it  in  delicious  suggestiveness  ? 
How  it  recalls  all  the  sweet  youthfulness 
of  life  and  nature!  As  Henry  Van  Dyke 
so  charmingly  says:  "Of  all  the  faculties 
of  the  human  mind,  memory  is  the  one 
that  is  most  easily  led  by  the  nose."  I 

2  17 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

know  of  nothing  like  the  smell  of  the  soil 
to  bring  back  the  zestful,  care-free  days  of 
boyhood,  and  to  thrill  the  soul  with  inti- 
mations and  prophecies  of  its  own  and  na- 
ture's eternal  youth. 

The  edge  of  spring  may  be  described  by 
a  somewhat  wavering  and  intermittent  line 
in  these  North  Atlantic  States — a  line  that 
extends  between  the  middle  of  February 
and  the  middle  of  March.  In  some  seasons 
you  will  encounter  it  two  or  three  weeks 
earlier  than  in  others ;  and  often  during  the 
same  season  it  will  appear  and  disappear, 
and  reappear  again,  like  forked  lightning 
in  the  night  sky.  But  as  a  general  thing, 
the  first  real  and  continuous  intimations  of 
spring  begin  with  the  last  week  in  February. 
Then  you  will  readily  detect  those  sky 
changes  and  air  changes  and  earth  changes 
that  herald  the  season  when,  as  Words- 
worth sings: 

"  The  winds  come  to  me  from  the  fields  of  sleep, 
And  all  the  earth  is  gay." 

No  sign  of  spring,  at  this  early  date,  is 
pronounced  and  positive,  but  on  every  hand 
are  those  delicate  promises,  those  thrilling 
18 


On  the  Edge  of  Spring 

premonitions,  that  are  so  sweet  and  vital 
a  part  of  this  most  beloved  of  seasons.  This 
year  (1901)  I  took  my  first  spring  walk  on 
the  i Qth  day  of  February.  It  was  just  after 
that  long-continued  period  of  extremely  cold 
weather,  when  for  eighteen  successive  days 
the  mercury  hovered  about  the  zero  mark. 
The  returning  warmth  of  the  sun  and  genial 
mildness  of  the  air  were  especially  grate- 
ful, and  I  was  not  surprised  to  find  that 
the  sudden,  sweet  promise  of  spring  had 
appealed  to  more  legitimate  proprietors  of 
the  woods  and  fields  than  myself.  All  wild 
life  seemed  to  be  astir,  that  sunny  morn- 
ing. The  crows  were  disporting  themselves 
high  in  air,  in  amatory  flights,  darting  over 
and  under  one  another,  and  uttering  those 
peculiar  cries  characteristic  of  their  mating 
season.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  describe 
these  curious  love  notes  of  the  crow,  so  odd 
and  varied  are  they;  but  some  of  them 
sounded  to  me  like  the  strident  croaks  of 
guinea  hens.  I  doubt  if  there  is  any  North- 
ern bird  that  begins  its  lovemaking  and 
nestmaking  as  early  as  our  common  crow. 
The  crow's  love  song  is  anything  but  mu- 
sical, but  it  is  always  sweet  to  my  ears,  be- 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

cause  it  forms  a  part  of  the  melodic  proph- 
ecy of  spring. 

I  had  scarcely  entered  the  woods  when 
in  the  crumbling,  disintegrating  snow  I 
found  the  wiry,  nervous,  wandering  tracks 
of  a  ruffed  grouse,  which  had  evidently 
been  abroad  that  very  morning,  far  earlier 
than  I,  to  seek  a  breakfast  of  leaves  and 
berries  on  the  knolls  uncovered  by  the  heat 
of  the  sun.  I  followed  the  winding  trail 
for  some  distance,  but  finally  it  so  turned, 
and  doubled,  and  intertwined  with  itself, 
that  I  lost  my  clue  and  had  to  give  it  up. 

Everywhere,  from  the  trustworthy  record 
of  the  snow,  it  appeared  that  the  squirrels 
had  been  on  the  move  likewise,  passing  from 
tree  to  tree  with  long,  joyous  leaps,  the 
vigor  of  spring  already  in  their  veins. 
Many  rabbit  tracks  through  the  thickets 
showed  where  the  cotton-tails  also  had 
chased  each  other,  like  those  black  lovers 
in  midair.  All  this  awakening  and  new  ac- 
tivity seemed  a  part  of  the  glad  expectation 
of  spring. 

The  skunk-cabbage  was  thrusting  its 
spear  point  up  through  the  black  loam  along 
the  brook — earliest  of  all  the  wild  sod- 


On  the  Edge  of  Spring 

breakers.  I  found  the  alder-buds  swelling 
beneath  their  scales,  and  the  catkins  of  both 
alders  and  willows  already  visible.  There 
was  bright  green  cress  in  the  bed  of  the 
brook,  and  a  few  spears  of  green  grass 
lifted  themselves  out  of  the  loam  in  a  shel- 
tered, sunny  corner  of  the  swamp.  Chick- 
adees were  lisping  their  faint  dee-dec-dee  in 
the  hemlocks;  jays  were  screaming  lustily 
among  the  dwarf  oaks ;  and  a  yellow-ham- 
mer sent  forth  his  clarion  challenge  from 
the  hillside.  Everywhere  the  decomposing 
snow  was  black  with  myriads  of  tiny,  sput- 
tering snow-lice,  that  darted  hither  and 
thither  like  sparks  out  of  a  fire.  Surely, 
spring  was  in  the  air  and  underfoot!  It 
was  good  to  be  abroad  at  the  first  whisper 
of  her  coming. 

Such  signs  would  mean  little,  if  they  did 
not  mean  so  much.  In  themselves  they 
carry  little  of  positive  assurance  of  spring. 
But  who  could  receive  them,  in  the  full 
consciousness  of  their  prophetic  significance, 
without  a  thrill  of  joy  that  was  almost  ec- 
static? They  tell  us  that  nature  is  waking 
from  her  deathlike  sleep,  that  her  chains 
are  crumbling,  and  that  soon  she  will  rise 

21 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

up,  and  fling  their  fragments  into  the  brooks 
and  rivers,  and  start  forth  to  clothe  the 
world  in  flowers  and  whistle  up  the  bird- 
songs  !  Happy  is  he  who  can  find  time  and 
heart  to  stand  on  the  edge  of  spring,  and 
listen  for  the  coming  of  the  birds  and  the 
flowers.  If  he  realizes  the  full  sweetness 
of  anticipation,  he  will  be  content  to  wait 
long  even  for  the  first  spray  of  pink  arbutus 
and  the  first  rapture  of  the  robin's  vesper 
hymn. 


AN  EARLY  SPRING  WALK 

AT  noon,  yesterday,  April  7th,  as  I  was 
crossing  the  town  common,  I  got  the  first 
smell  of  the  soil — that  indescribably  fresh, 
damp  odor  that  thrills  all  one's  nerves  as 
with  the  very  touch  of  spring.  Here  and 
there  huge  snow-banks  were  still  lying,  dirty 
and  ragged,  like  mammoth  cattle  that  had 
"wintered  out;"  and  the  light  breeze  blow- 
ing from  the  north  had  the  tang  of  frost 
in  it  yet.  But  I  could  not  resist  that  intox- 
icating odor  of  the  earth.  It  waked  some- 
thing in  my  heart  as  restless  and  wild  and 
undaunted  as  the  sprout  of  the  frost-break- 
ing crocus,  and  I  perforce  dedicated  the  rest 
of  the  day  to  the  fields  and  wood-edges. 

Immediately  after  dinner — the  New  Eng- 
lander's  good,  old-fashioned,  noonday  din- 
ner— I  was  off  across  the  pastures  to  the 
eastward,  my  rubber  boots  splashing 
through  the  puddles  of  snow  water  that  still 
sparkled  in  little  hollows  of  the  frost-bound 
soil.  The  sun  lay  warm  and  cheery  over 

23 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

all  the  landscape,  and  the  breeze  had  just 
enough  frost  in  it  to  be  delicious  to  the  nos- 
trils, as  well  as  bracing.  The  song-sparrows 
were  lifting  up  their  sweet  thank-offerings 
everywhere,  by  altars  of  bush  and  stone, 
and  now  and  then  I  heard  the  clarion  of  the 
robin  from  some  neighboring  orchard.  On 
a  fence  post  sat  a  solitary  bluebird,  but  he 
was  silent — depressed,  apparently,  at  having 
arrived  so  long  before  his  fellows.  It  would 
be  some  days  yet,  I  imagined,  before  I 
should  hear  his  jubilant  strain. 

Straggling  crows  were  drifting  south- 
ward, overhead,  scolding  me  with  harsh, 
suspicious  caws.  The  crow  is  the  most 
"canny"  and  sophisticated  of  all  our  wild 
birds.  He  suspects  all  mankind,  and  even 
womankind,  of  carrying  guns  up  their 
sleeves,  and  being  banded  in  a  perpetual 
league  to  lay  him  low.  No  range,  however 
long,  seems  to  promise  him  immunity  from 
the  deadly  bullet,  and  he  starts  his  hoarse 
alarmist  cry  if  he  spies  a  human  figure  a 
mile  away. 

Before  I  came  to  the  edge  of  the  woods 
I  was  in  a  glow  from  exercise,  and  the 
blood  coursed  in  my  veins  like  liquid  fire. 
24 


An  Early  Spring  Walk 

It  was  a  part  of  the  natural  exhilaration 
of  all  life  at  the  return  of  the  spring.  I 
feel  it  distinctly  every  season — this  rejuve- 
nation and  re-enforcement  of  all  my  vital 
powers  and  functions.  It  is  as  pronounced 
with  me  as  with  the  plants  and  the  trees; 
a  flooding  upward  and  outward  to  the  very 
finger  tips  and  pores  of  the  scalp  of  the  sap 
of  life;  a  vernal  flood  tide  of  health  and 
energy  and  hope  and  delight  in  existence. 
All  animals,  I  think,  feel  it  more  or  less, 
and  all  men  in  proportion  as  they  share 
the  life  of  nature  and  are  in  sympathy  and 
communion  with  her.  Farmers,  hunters, 
boatmen,  explorers,  surveyors,  ramblers — 
these  out-of-door  men  know  what  is  meant 
by  the  exaltation  and  exhilaration  of  the 
spring.  They  have  all  felt  this  rushing  ver- 
nal sap  in  their  veins,  and  that  transporting 
thrill,  which  seems  to  exude  at  last  in  a  fine 
spray  from  every  extremity.  Even  up  to 
old  age  such  men  renew  their  boyhood  every 
spring.  Their  hearts  swell  within  them ; 
their  muscles  grow  elastic  and  tireless,  so 
that  they  seem  to  walk  on  air;  their  bodies 
glow  and  palpitate,  and  their  spirits  respond 
to  all  bird  songs  and  brook  music.  It  is 

25 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

the  universal,  perpetual  rejuvenation  of  the 
spring;  and  so  long  as  we  can  share  it,  we 
are  not  old,  but  still  belong  to  the  youth  and 
enthusiasm  and  fecundity  of  nature. 

Even  so  early  as  the  first  week  in  April, 
with  frost  still  lingering  in  the  open  fields 
and  snow  littering  the  woods  to  their  very 
edges,  the  first  rambler  of  the  season  will 
find  some  few  hardy  wild  flowers,  either 
with  half-open  buds  or  in  brave  full  bloom. 
I  saw,  on  this  crisp  April  day,  even  before 
I  came  to  the  southward-sloping  bank  be- 
neath the  woods,  what  looked  like  a  deli- 
cate mat  of  ladies'  veils,  or  a  gigantic,  iri- 
descent spider's  web  spread  out  in  the  sun, 
and  knew  it  to  be  a  densely  clustered  bed 
of  the  grayish-blue  Houstonia,  or  bluets. 
There  they  trembled  in  the  wind,  those  ex- 
quisite frail  flowers,  like  little  mouse-ears 
raised  aloft  on  swaying  stalks.  How  frag- 
ile! At  a  little  distance  they  looked  like 
a  puff  of  smoke  that  the  wind  must  pres- 
ently drive  away.  And  yet  they  are  so 
hardy  as  to  survive  frosts  and  even  late 
snowstorms.  I  have  pulled  them  out  of  the 
snow,  as  fresh  and  unwilted  and  shining 
as  the  hour  they  broke  the  sod.  Indeed, 
26 


An  Early  Spring  Walk 

nearly  all  the  early  spring  flowers  are  notice- 
ably delicate  in  texture  and  fragile  and 
dainty  in  form.  The  coarser,  apparently 
stronger,  flowers  come  later.  It  is  one  of 
those  paradoxes  of  which  inscrutable  na- 
ture is  so  fond.  She  loves  to  astonish  us 
by  sending  up  her  whitest  lily  out  of  the 
black  mire,  and  setting  her  most  fragile, 
baby-like  flowers  on  the  edge  of  a  snow- 
bank. 

I  picked  some  of  the  most  vividly  pink 
arbutus  blossoms,  on  this  same  afternoon, 
along  the  edge  of  the  woods.  None  so  fra- 
grant and  so  richly  tinted  will  be  found 
later.  The  pure  white  blossoms  predomi- 
nate as  the  season  advances,  larger  and 
creamier  and  more  cloyingly  sweet  in  per- 
fume than  the  pink  firstlings,  but  not  so 
delicate,  so  blushingly  beautiful,  and  so 
spicily  fragrant.  I  found  also  a  few  tiny 
golden  saucers  of  cinquefoil,  timid  and 
pinched,  as  if  regretful  of  having  opened 
so  soon. 

Every  run  I  crossed,  and  every  swampy 

place  under  the  edge  of  the  woods,  had  from 

two  to  a  dozen  of  the  sharp-pointed,  purplish 

spathes  of  the  skunk-cabbage  thrusting  up 

27 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

through  the  wet  soil.  The  hood  of  the 
spathe  had,  since  it  first  broke  the  ground 
in  March,  lifted  visibly,  and  the  sides  ex- 
panded, bulging  outward,  so  as  to  reveal 
the  small,  pale  clusters  of  minute  flowers, 
protected  until  now  by  the  warm-colored 
and  tightly-closed  blanket  of  the  spathe. 

Almost  constantly,  as  I  strolled  along 
the  edge  of  the  woods,  I  could  hear  the 
silvery  chimes  of  the  hylas,  those  tiny 
wood-frogs  which  inhabit  the  pools  and 
marshes,  and  jingle  their  strings  of  sleigh- 
bells  (for  the  music,  at  a  little  distance, 
sounds  exactly  like  sleigh-bells)  from  the 
ist  of  April  until  the  middle  of  May.  There 
is  no  sound,  to  me,  so  delightful,  so  sug- 
gestive, so  characteristic  and  typical  of  early 
spring,  as  the  chirping  of  the  hylas.  It 
unites  the  early  and  the  later  season,  for 
it  has  a  tinkle  like  the  dripping  and  clash- 
ing of  icicles,  and  a  melodious,  flowing 
music  like  released  brooks  and  the  voices 
of  birds.  I  should  feel  lost  and  desolate 
without  my  sleigh-bells  in  the  spring.  The 
first  pipe  of  the  hyla  is  more  delicious  to  me 
than  a  whisper  from  Remenyi's  violin,  and 
when  there  comes  an  answer,  gradually 
28 


An  Early  Spring  Walk 

swelling  into  an  irregular,  vibrant  chorus, 
my  heart  tastes  again,  for  a  little  while,  the 
unnamable  ecstasy  of  childhood,  and  I  can 
believe  that  I  am  standing  once  more  on  the 
morning  threshold  of  the  world. 

Every  sight  and  sound  and  odor  of  the 
early  spring  seems  to  possess  a  peculiar 
significance  and  charm,  such  as  is  revealed 
to  the  lover  of  nature  at  no  other  season  of 
the  year.  All  reports  of  the  senses  teem 
with  freshness,  newness,  pungency,  promise. 

"  The  year  's  at  the  spring," 

sings  Browning;  and  in  that  single  line  he 
conveys  an  almost  overwhelming  sense  of 
the  fullness  of  life,  hope,  joy,  energy,  cour- 
age, determination.  Just  as  there  is  one  day 
in  every  month  when  the  sea  floods  up  irre- 
sistibly and  touches  its  highest  tide-mark,  so 
there  is  one  month  in  the  year  when  the  life 
of  nature  climbs  to  its  maximum,  and  thrills 
the  whole  world  with  a  sense  of  vital  reple- 
tion and  power.  April  is  the  month  of  all 
months  to  go  rambling,  for  one's  health  of 
body  and  mind,  because  it  is  then  we  may 
embark  upon  that  mysterious  flood-tide  of 
reviving  nature,  and  share  the  exaltation 
29 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

and  exhilaration  of  all  organic  and  sentient 
life.  Before  the  grass  is  green  on  the  hills, 
or  the  mist  of  early  leafage  dims  the  swamp, 
take  your  stout  staff,  rambler,  and  go 
a-field.  Then,  though  your  hair  be  gray, 
you  will  find  yourself  wandering  blissfully 
back  to  boyhood,  and  standing  again  on 
some  sunrise-hill,  with  the  whole  world 
swimming  in  morning  gold  beneath  your 
feet. 


THE  WAKING  OF  THE  FISHES 

IT  is  a  pity  that  so  many  lovers  and  stu- 
dents of  nature  pay  little  or  no  attention  to 
"the  water  under  the  earth."  Birds  and 
flowers  are  studied  with  enthusiasm  by 
thousands,  but  the  animal  and  vegetable  life 
of  the  water — particularly  the  animal  life — 
seems  to  be  overlooked  or  disregarded,  as 
belonging  to  a  foreign  element.  This  is  un- 
fortunate, because  there  is  so  much  of  rare 
and  surprising  interest  in  the  study  of 
water-life — so  many  revelations  of  the  won- 
ders of  God's  creation,  so  many  glimpses 
into  the  marvelous  resources  and  adapta- 
bilities of  nature.  The  life  of  the  water  is 
not  only  fascinating  in  its  own  body  of  facts, 
but  it  is  full  of  surprises  and  suggestions, 
now  in  the  way  of  contrast  with  the  life  of 
earth  and  air,  and  now  in  curious  corre- 
spondence with  it.  The  study  of  fishes  in 
particular  is  most  fascinating ;  and  I  do  not 
know  how  the  mind  of  a  beginner  in  nature- 

31 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

study  could  be  more  stimulated  and  broad- 
ened than  by  making  a  series  of  observa- 
tions simultaneously  upon  fishes  and  birds. 
These  two  great  kingdoms  are  strangely 
alike  and  yet  unlike.  Their  contrasts  and 
correspondences  are  more  interesting  than 
any  romance,  and  there  is  an  endless  delight 
in  discovering  and  bringing  out  new  points, 
both  of  striking  divergence  and  likeness. 

The  waking  of  the  fishes  in  the  spring 
is  a  most  charming  chapter  to  study  in  con- 
nection with  the  return  of  the  birds.  I  sup- 
pose there  is  scarcely  one  person  in  fifty  who 
knows  that  many  tribes  of  fishes,  as  well  as 
of  birds,  migrate  to  warmer  waters  during 
the  winter,  and  return,  at  the  same  time  with 
the  birds,  to  lay  eggs  and  even  build  nests 
as  they  do.  But  this  is  a  fact  long  ago  estab- 
lished by  scientists ;  and  there  may  be,  if  we 
choose,  great  delight  in  knowing  and  taking 
advantage  of  it. 

April  is  distinctively  the  month  of  wak- 
ing and  activity  with  the  fishes,  just  as  it 
is  with  the  birds;  and  from  then  until  the 
middle  or  latter  part  of  May  is  the  time 
when  both  tribes  may  be  studied  with  the 
greatest  profit  and  delight.  Any  one  who 
32 


The  Waking  of  the  Fishes 

lives  in  the  vicinity  of  brooks,  rivers,  or 
ponds,  and  particularly  of  streams  flowing 
into  the  sea,  may  be  sure  of  rich  returns 
from  time  spent,  during  the  month  of  April, 
in  observing  the  fishes.  All  waters  are  then 
alive  with  them,  while  the  great  instinct 
and  necessity  of  reproduction  is  stimulating 
them  to  utmost  activity,  and  at  the  same 
time  bringing  out  their  most  interesting 
habits. 

Let  us  glance  first  at  the  migratory  habits 
of  some  of  our  commoner  fishes,  such  as 
may  be  found,  during  the  warmer  months 
of  the  year,  in  almost  any  stream  larger  than 
a  rivulet.  Do  such  fish,  for  instance,  as  the 
perch,  the  sucker,  the  sunfish,  the  bass,  the 
pike,  and  the  brook  trout,  ever  migrate? 
It  is  the  common  impression,  I  am  aware, 
that  they  do  not,  and  yet  a  careful  study  of 
their  habits  proves  them  to  be  what  we  call, 
among  the  birds,  "semi-migrants."  That  is 
to  say,  these  fishes  pass  down  from  the 
higher  waters  of  streams  to  the  lower  and 
warmer  waters,  and  very  often  into  larger 
streams  or  into  ponds  and  lakes,  returning 
with  the  waking  season  in  the  spring  to  the 
shallower  waters,  where  they  breed  and 

3  33 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

spend  the  first  half  of  the  year — counting 
spring  as  its  beginning. 

Every  country  boy  knows,  for  example, 
something  about  the  spring  migration  of 
the  suckers;  and  when  you  see  him  start- 
ing out  with  his  "gigging-pole,"  or  his  rod 
and  line,  you  may  be  pretty  sure  that  the 
suckers  are  beginning  to  run  up  some  brook 
that  he  wots  of.  So  it  is  also  with  the 
brook  trout,  the  gamy  and  delicious  and 
highly  prized  salmo  fontinalis,  as  your  ex- 
perienced angler  well  knows.  In  April  the 
trout  come  swarming  up  the  smaller  rivers 
and  streams  from  which  they  have  migrated 
during  the  winter.  They  are  coming  up  to 
spawn,  and  to  remain  until  fall,  when  the 
downward  pilgrimage  again  begins.  The 
well-informed  and  skillful  angler  meets 
them  on  their  spring  migration,  when  the 
law  allows  him  to  take  them.  In  the  fall, 
however,  the  season  is  closed  legally,  osten- 
sibly because  it  is  spawning  time,  though  as 
a  matter  of  fact  the  spawning  of  brook  trout 
takes  place  about  midway  between  the 
spring  and  fall  migrations. 

The  black  bass  is  another  instance  of  a 
fish  that  migrates  to  deeper  water  late  in 
34 


The  Waking  of  the  Fishes 

the  season;  and  fishermen  through  the  ice 
of  ponds  and  lakes  can  testify  to  the  great 
increase  in  the  number  of  perch,  pickerel, 
etc.,  during  the  winter,  as  these  fishes  come 
out  from  the  ponds  and  creeks  to  warmer 
and  more  protected  depths.  And  so  I  think 
we  may  claim  that  there  is  a  semi-migration 
of  many  of  our  commoner  fishes  twice  a 
year,  just  as  there  is  of  robins,  bluejays, 
crows,  flickers,  and  other  familiar  birds, 
that  do  not  entirely  leave  the  temperate  zone 
in  their  search  for  a  warmer  climate  in 
winter.  Here,  then,  is  one  pleasing  corre- 
spondence between  birds  and  fishes — that  a 
certain  number  of  both  tribes  are  limited 
or  semi-migrants. 

A  further  and  more  marked  correspond- 
ence may  be  observed  in  the  case  of  certain 
salt-water  fishes,  particularly  those  that 
spawn  in  fresh-water  streams — the  anad- 
romous  fishes,  so  called.  These  fishes 
make  extended  southward  migrations,  just 
as  the  majority  of  birds  do,  and  return  at 
the  same  season  in  the  spring — the  great 
waking  and  home-returning  month  of  April. 
At  the  same  time  that  the  mighty  army  of 
birds  is  speeding  northward,  what  we  might 

35 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

call  the  fleet  of  the  fishes  is  accompanying 
them  along  the  coast ;  and  we  may  trace  the 
progress  of  the  latter  by  the  successive  dates 
when  they  ascend  the  coast  streams,  begin- 
ning to  do  this  as  early  as  January  in  the 
Savannah  River,  and  continuing  gradually 
northward,  until  the  New  England  Coast 
streams  receive  them  in  April  and  early 
May.  The  names  of  these  fresh-water 
breeding  migrants  among  the  fishes  are  fa- 
miliar to  nearly  all  dwellers  along  the 
coast — the  herrings,  alewives,  shad,  and 
salmon.  But  hosts  of  other  sea-fishes,  that 
do  not  spawn  in  fresh  water,  are  migratory, 
and  come  northward  at  the  same  time  with 
the  birds,  only  we  can  not  trace  their  jour- 
neyings  as  exactly  as  we  can  those  of  the 
anadromous  fishes. 

Now  let  us  turn  for  a  moment  to  that 
other  curiously  bird-like  habit  of  certain 
fishes,  when  they,  like  the  birds,  are  wak- 
ing to  the  joys  and  responsibilities  of  family 
life;  namely,  nest-building.  The  majority 
of  fishes,  to  be  sure,  like  some  birds,  lay 
their  eggs  without  providing  any  nests  for 
them,  but  certain  species  are  very  particular 
about  the  homes  and  safeguards  of  their  off- 
36 


The  Waking  of  the  Fishes 

spring.  The  rock  bass  and  the  two  varieties 
of  black  bass  are  well-known  examples. 
These  fishes  scoop  out  a  hole  with  their  fins 
in  the  bottom  of  the  stream,  and  then  bring 
pebbles  or  small  stones  to  the  bowl-like  cav- 
ity, to  which  the  female  attaches  her  spawn, 
mounting  guard  over  the  nest  until  the  eggs 
hatch,  which  is  generally  within  ten  days. 
Any  offending  object  dropped  upon  or  near 
the  nest  is  promptly  and  indignantly  re- 
moved. 

The  sunfish,  or  "pumpkin  seed,"  also 
scoops  out  a  nest  in  the  bottom  of  the 
stream,  but  does  not  ballast  it  with  peb- 
bles. Her  nest  is  large  and  deep,  however, 
and  built  in  comparatively  still  water,  where 
the  unattached  eggs  are  not  likely  to  be  car- 
ried away  by  the  current.  The  female  not 
only  watches  over  the  eggs  till  they  are 
hatched,  but  drives  away  every  intruder, 
even  of  her  own  species,  that  ventures  to 
approach  the  spot. 

The  stickleback's  nest,  however,  is  the 
most  remarkable  of  all  fish  nests,  most  like 
a  bird's  nest,  being  built  of  grass  and  weeds, 
fastened  together  with  slime  from  the  fish's 
own  body.  There  is  a  hole  entirely  through 

37 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

the  nest,  from  one  side  to  the  other,  pro- 
vided in  order  that  water  may  constantly 
flow  over  the  eggs.  In  the  case  of  the 
stickleback,  curiously  enough,  it  is  the  male 
that  builds  and  defends  the  nest. 

The  correspondences  between  bird  and 
fish  life  which  I  have  hastily  sketched,  serve 
to  show  what  a  fascinating  study  may  be 
made  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  water,  if  one 
is  willing  to  devote  the  necessary  time  and 
attention  to  the  subject.  I  might  mention 
other  water-tribes  besides  the  fishes  whose 
life  history  is  full  of  interest  and  wonder. 
But  my  object  is  accomplished,  if  I  have  in 
any  degree  induced  other  students  of  Nature 
to  look  into  those  crystal  wonder-depths  for 
themselves,  and  especially  at  a  time  so  rich 
in  all  the  operations  of  life,  and  so  fruitful 
in  disclosures  and  surprises,  as  the  joyous 
month  of  April. 


IN  ANGLING  TIME 

WITH  the  breaking  forth  of  the  buds  in 
spring  there  is  a  certain  primitive  and  in- 
extinguishable passion  that  breaks  forth  in 
the  hearts  of  men.  It  is  the  well-nigh  uni- 
versal desire  to  go  a-fishing.  There  is  no 
other  outdoor  longing  that  seems  to  pos- 
sess so  generally  all  ages  and  conditions  of 
mankind.  The  savage  still  survives  in  most 
of  us  to  this  gentle  degree,  that,  after  the 
long  semi-hibernation,  which  even  our  mod- 
ern life  scarcely  modifies,  we  must  needs  go 
forth  at  the  time  when  Nature  liberates  all 
her  creatures  once  more,  and  replenish  our 
larders,  material  and  immaterial,  from  the 
bounties  of  lake  and  stream.  Man  and 
boy — and  to  a  growing  extent  woman  also — 
are  seized  in  spring  by  that  deliciously  im- 
perative feeling  that  it  is  time  to  "wet  a 
line."  The  "most  grave  and  reverend 
senior"  puts  on  an  old  suit  of  clothes  and 
a  soft,  faded  hat,  and  humbly  stoops  beside 

39 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

the  eager  boy  to  gather  bait  out  of  the  gar- 
den loam.  And  then  man  and  boy  trudge 
off  together,  rods  in  hand,  with  a  sense  of 
such  perfect  companionship  and  sympathy 
as  is  worth  far  more  than  its  weight  in 
abandoned  dignity  or  forfeited  toil. 

It  is  when  this  temperate  zone  of  ours, 
and  these  rugged  landscapes  to  which  most 
of  us  are  accustomed,  are  all  pink  and  white 
and  fragrant  with  the  blossoms  of  orchards, 
that  angling  time  is  at  its  height.  Old  fish- 
ermen say  that  it  is  little  use  to  wet  a  line 
for  trout  until  you  can  smell  the  apple 
blossoms.  I  have  angled  for  all  kinds  of 
fresh-water  fish,  from  the  time  when  the  ice 
first  went  out  until  the  law  forbade,  but  I 
have  never  had  any  success  worth  mention- 
ing (except  with  the  cold-blooded  and 
phlegmatic  sucker)  until  the  fruit-trees  were 
fully  in  bloom,  and  their  sweetness  was 
blown  into  my  face  on  puffs  of  air  as  warm 
as  a  draught  from  a  florist's  conservatory. 
Not  until  then  does  the  water  of  our  lakes 
and  streams  lose  enough  of  its  winter  chill 
to  wake  its  inhabitants  fairly  out  of  their 
torpidity.  The  trout,  generally  speaking, 
will  not  rise  to  a  fly  until  June,  nor  pay 
40 


In  Angling  Time 

much  attention  even  to  the  seductive  worm 
until  the  ist  of  May.  And,  to  a  less  marked 
degree,  other  fresh-water  fish  are  sluggish 
during  the  same  period.  But  when  those 
first  spring  heats  come  on,  which  make 
you  think  that  even  midsummer  will  scarcely 
bring  you  a  greater  desire  to  "sit  in  your 
bones,"  then  is  the  halcyon  time  to  go 
a-fishing.  Then  is  the  time  when,  if  you 
are  a  true  angler  born  and  bred,  to  be 
chained  down  to  desk  or  shop  or  classroom 
will  make  you  actually  sick  in  body  as  well 
as  in  mind.  The  angler  who  reads  these 
lines  will  not  smile,  I  am  sure,  at  the  con- 
fession that  I  once  had  a  serious  fit  of  sick- 
ness brought  on  not  otherwise  than  by  a 
persistently  thwarted  longing  to  get  to  the 
woods  in  angling  time.  Circumstances  were 
such  that  I  could  not  leave  my  post  of  duty 
even  for  a  day ;  but  the  struggle  to  smother 
my  passion  was  so  severe  that,  after  the 
witching  time  had  passed,  my  system  col- 
lapsed, and  I  was  perforce  a  non-producer 
for  three  months.  Three  days  of  fishing 
would  have  saved  me  three  months'  time — 
the  more 's  the  pity !  It  was  the  being  un- 
able to  go  at  all  that  laid  me  low.  I  appeal 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

not  to  the  uninitiated  for  sympathy,  but 
every  genuine  angler  will  understand. 

Now,  then,  let  us  see  what  a  day  in  ang- 
ling time  is  worth.  You  wake  up  very  early 
in  the  morning  to  the  concert  of  birds,  and 
a  sweet  thrill  like  that  of  boyhood's  time 
runs  through  you  at  the  thought  of  the  day's 
enterprise.  You  are  out  of  bed  at  a  leap, 
and  presently  slip  into  that  old  suit,  so  com- 
fortable in  every  wonted  fold,  so  redolent 
with  pleasant  memories.  The  boy  hears, 
you — the  blessed  boy,  renewer  of  your 
youth — and  soon  he,  too,  is  out  of  dream- 
land and  out  of  bed,  staggering  a  little,  and 
with  fists  dug  into  his  blinking  eyes,  but 
bravely  dragging  out  his  old  clothes  and 
hunting  for  his  thick  waterproof  shoes. 

Then,  while  the  smiling  helpmate  pre- 
pares an  early  breakfast,  you  and  the  boy 
go  out  to  dig  worms,  and  come  back  with 
overflowing  bait-boxes  and  such  appetites 
as  neither  of  you  has  displayed  for  weeks. 
Breakfast  is  a  feast,  sweetened  by  expecta- 
tion; and  when  it  is  finished  you  get  your 
gear  together,  whistling,  while  mother  puts 
up  a  generous  lunch.  Then  off  you  start, 
to  be  gone  the  whole  day ;  and  as  you  trudge 
42 


In  Angling  Time 

down  the  street,  between  bird-peopled  trees, 
it  seems  somehow  as  if  you  had  been  born 
again  that  morning — as  if  you  had  entered 
anew  into  the  freshness  and  sweetness  and 
young  hope  of  life.  Your  heart  is  as  light 
as  the  boy's,  and  they  flow  together  like 
two  streams  from  which  the  separating  bar- 
rier has  been  broken  down. 

The  walk  to  the  woods  is  full  of  pleasant 
talk  and  warm  confidences.  No  father,  I 
think,  has  ever  quite  known  his  boy  until  he 
has  gone  fishing  with  him.  Nor  has  any 
boy  known  his  father  until  they  have  shared 
such  companionship.  Blessed  is  the  man 
whose  soul  does  not  become  infected  with 
the  senescence  of  his  body !  It  is  a  pitiful 
fate,  I  think,  for  a  soul  to  grow  old  like 
bones  and  muscles. 

Then,  when  you  have  come  to  the  stream 
in  the  odorous  balsam  woods,  and  the  roar 
of  it  drowns  all  your  talk,  and  you  have 
little  means  of  communicating  thenceforth 
save  by  gestures,  you  rig  your  tackle,  and 
put  on  a  worm,  and  settle  down  to  the  solid 
enjoyment  of  the  day.  You  let  the  boy  go 
on  ahead  down  stream,  to  have  the  first  cast 
in  the  likely  holes,  and  you  follow,  now 

43 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

keeping  your  absorbed  disciple  just  in  sight, 
and  now  losing  him  for  a  space  around  a 
bend  in  the  stream.  Now  and  then  he  holds 
up  to  you,  in  eloquent  silence,  some  eight 
or  ten  inch  prize,  gleaming  where  the  sun 
sifts  down  between  the  young  leaves.  You 
nod  and  smile,  and  thank  God  for  the  inno- 
cent mutual  joys  of  life  and  nature. 

Presently,  you  are  absorbed  in  the  strug- 
gle with  a  crimson-spotted  "pounder"  your- 
self, and  by  the  time  you  have  tired  him  out 
and  landed  him  the  boy  is  too  far  away  to 
share  your  triumph.  Perhaps  you  do  not 
see  him  again  until  an  ever-increasing  ad- 
monition beneath  the  belt  slackens  his  steps, 
and  you  come  upon  him  sitting  on  a  stone 
beside  a  cool  brooklet  that  slips  into  your 
trout  stream;  and  his  first  audible  question 
is:  "Father,  isn't  this  a  pretty  good  place 
to  eat  our  lunch?" 

Yes,  a  wonderfully  good  place! — though 
it  is  barely  eleven  o'clock  yet.  So  down 
you  two  sit,  side  by  side  on  the  flat  rock, 
with  the  drinking-cup  between  you,  and 
prove  the  inexpressible  deliciousness  of 
home-made  sandwiches,  doughnuts,  and 
44 


In  Angling  Time 

pie,  sauced  with  the  wild  hunger  of  the 
woods. 

In  the  middle  of  the  golden  afternoon 
you  unjoint  your  rods,  slip  them  into  their 
cases,  gather  some  fresh  ferns,  and  sit  down 
by  the  stream  to  wash  your  trout,  count 
them,  and  lay  them  daintily  back  in  their 
bed  of  ferns.  It  has  been  a  sweet,  happy 
day,  and  you  have  taken  fish  enough  for  a 
good  meal  on  the  home  table,  and  for  grand- 
father and  grandmother,  and  for  Uncle 
Ned's  folks.  Let  us  be  thankful  for  God's 
bounty,  and  not  abuse  it.  Now  for  a  little 
rest  and  more  happy  talk  by  the  cool  water. 
Then  we  will  tramp  home  by  another  road 
through  fresh  scenes;  and  as  we  near  the 
village  the  same  birds  that  sang  us  forth 
with  their  matins  will  welcome  us  sweetly 
back  with  their  vespers.  What  a  good 
world  it  is !  How  it  beats  with  the  heart  of 
God — if  only  one  listens  always  as  closely 
and  as  lovingly  as  one  does  in  angling  time ! 


45 


SOME  HERMITS  OF  THE  MARSH 

RETURNING  home  from  a  long  April 
walk,  the  other  day,  I  heard,  as  I  was  plod- 
ding across  a  willow-bordered  causeway 
that  crossed  a  marsh,  a  sound  like  one 
pumping  water  from  a  well  with  an  old- 
fashioned,  wheezy,  wooden  pump.  There 
was  no  house  in  sight  anywhere,  and  the 
marsh  was  wide  and  deserted,  yet  I  instinct- 
ively looked  in  the  direction  of  the  sound, 
half  expecting  to  see  some  bare-armed  coun- 
try girl  pumping  a  pitcherful  of  water  for 
the  supper-table,  or  a  thirsty  farm  laborer, 
with  one  hand  over  the  nozzle  of  the  pump- 
spout,  bending  down  to  drink  the  cool 
stream  that  spurted  from  his  fingers.  But 
in  a  moment  I  knew  that  the  deceptive 
sound  I  had  heard  was  made  by  the  bittern, 
or  "stake-driver,"  a  large,  shy,  ungainly 
bird  of  the  wader  family,  that  tenants  re- 
mote marshes,  and  seldom  shows  itself  in 
the  open  or  upon  the  wing,  unless  startled 
from  its  muddy  retreat  by  the  gunner  or  the 
46 


Some  Hermits  of  the  Marsh 

mower  on  the  marsh.  When  thus  alarmed, 
it  rises  awkwardly  and  heavily,  craning  its 
neck  in  all  directions,  and  uttering  a  hoarse, 
croaking  note.  The  bird  is  a  powerful  flyer, 
however,  when  once  fairly  on  the  wing.  It 
often  rises  to  a  considerable  height,  and  flies 
a  long  distance  before  again  settling  in  the 
marsh. 

The  odd,  far-sounding  note  of  the  bittern, 
when  undisturbed,  has  been  variously  lik- 
ened by  writers  on  ornithology  to  the  driv- 
ing of  a  stake  into  moist,  soft  ground — as 
the  common  name  of  the  bird  indicates — 
to  the  hollow  coughing  of  an  old  wooden 
pump,  and  to  the  rattling  stroke  of  a  pair 
of  loose  "pin-oars"  on  a  scow.  Like  all 
bird-sounds,  the  note  represents  different 
things  to  different  ears,  and  is  hard  to  de- 
scribe with  exactness.  It  resembles  in  a 
general  way  all  three  of  the  sounds  to  which 
it  is  commonly  likened,  and  yet  it  has  a 
cadence  and  quality  and  character  of  its 
own  that  are  quite  distinct  from  any  of  them. 
To  me,  it  always  suggests  the  sound  of  the 
old  pump  back  of  my  uncle's  house  in  the 
country,  where  I  used  to  spend  all  my  va- 
cations as  a  boy.  The  first  hollow,  guttural 

47 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

a-unk,  a-unk,  fairly  makes  me  thirsty,  and 
my  fingers  itch  for  the  rusted  tin  dipper  that 
used  to  convey  such  nectar  to  my  parched 
lips. 

Comparatively  little  is  really  known,  as 
yet,  of  the  habits  of  what  might  be  called 
our  "hermit-birds,"  like  the  bittern,  the  rail, 
the  mud-hen,  the  Wilson's  snipe,  the  wood- 
cock, and  the  whip-poor-will.  Most  people, 
I  imagine,  even  those  who  are  fond  of  bird- 
study,  would  have  to  confess  that  they  have 
never  seen  all  of  these  comparatively  com- 
mon birds,  alive,  in  their  native  haunts. 
Some,  I  am  quite  sure,  would  have  to  admit 
that  they  have  never  seen  one  of  them. 
Even  professional  ornithologists  have  found 
difficulty  in  collecting  what  scientific  data 
they  have  concerning  these  bird  hermits. 
There  is  much  still  to  be  learned  about  them, 
so  that  the  study  of  their  habits,  when  pos- 
sible, is  full  of  fresh  interest  and  stimulus. 

I  wonder  if  any  bird  student  who  reads 
this  chapter  has  ever  tried  to  "stalk"  a  bit- 
tern in  a  marsh,  while  it  was  uttering  its 
peculiar,  booming  cry?  It  is  a  more  deli- 
cate and  difficult  piece  of  business  by  far 
than  stalking  a  drumming  ruffed  grouse  in 
48 


Some  Hermits  of  the  Marsh 

the  woods.  You  must  go  very  slowly  and 
noiselessly,  advancing  only  when  the  bird 
is  engaged  in  the  all-engrossing  task  of 
"disgorging"  its  deep-drawn,  laborious  note, 
for  the  "stake-driver"  has  a  sharp  eye  as 
well  as  a  keen  ear,  and  a  neck  sufficiently 
long  to  enable  him  to  peer  over  the  top  of 
the  marsh-grass.  But,  if  you  have  patience 
and  caution,  you  may  at  length  trace  him 
to  the  spot  where  he  stands  in  the  long 
swamp-grass  beside  some  shallow  ditch  or 
muddy  pool,  watching  for  tiny  frogs,  tad- 
poles, or  the  fry  of  fresh-water  fish.  Here 
he  will  feed  all  day  long,  unless  disturbed, 
uttering  occasionally  his  gulping  a-unk, 
a-unk,  with  a  visible  effort,  as  if  vomiting 
it  up.  Were  it  not  for  that  advertisement 
of  his  presence,  you  might  live  all  summer 
near  the  edge  of  a  swamp,  and  never  suspect 
that  there  was  such  a  bird  in  it. 

The  rail,  another  marsh-dweller,  is  still 
more  of  a  hermit  and  hider  than  the  bit- 
tern, because  he  is  not  only  a  skulker,  but 
an  entirely  silent  bird  as  well.  You  may 
come  upon  him  suddenly,  while  pushing 
through  the  sedgy  border  of  some  fresh- 
water pond.  He  will  jump  up  within  a 

4  49 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

few  feet  of  you,  absolutely  noiselessly,  with- 
out report  of  voice  or  wing,  and  drift  slowly 
along  over  the  tops  of  the  reeds  like  a  dead 
leaf.  Then  he  will  drop  down  again,  with 
comical  suddenness,  and  vanish  from  sight. 
His  appearance  is  altogether  ghostlike  and 
eerie.  When  the  reeds  have  swallowed  him 
up  once  more  you  almost  question  whether 
your  senses  have  not  deceived  you — whether 
you  have  not  seen  a  shadow  instead  of  a 
bird.  Yet  the  rail  is  very  common  on  our 
marshes,  especially  during  the  summer.  He 
arrives  late  in  the  spring,  breeds  with  us, 
and  then  returns  southward  quite  early  in 
the  fall.  A  squat  little  figure  is  his,  with  the 
legs  set  well  back,  like  those  of  all  the 
waders.  He  has  an  enormous  foot,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  size  of  his  body,  the  long, 
spreading  toes  acting  as  a  kind  of  mud- 
shoe  to  bear  him  up  and  enable  him  to  run 
swiftly  over  the  soft  slime  in  which  he  seeks 
his  food.  His  coloring  is  rather  pretty,  or 
would  be,  if  its  variegated  shades — green- 
ish brown  above,  and  ashy  blue  with  white 
markings  beneath — were  more  pronounced 
and  less  blurred.  In  size  the  rail  is  a  little 
smaller  than  a  robin,  but  being  bob-tailed 


Some  Hermits  of  the  Marsh 

and  having  less  spread  of  wing,  it  appears 
considerably  smaller  when  in  flight. 

The  mud-hen  is  a  cousin  of  the  rail,  and 
the  habits  and  general  appearance  of  the 
two  birds  are  much  alike,  though  the  mud- 
hen  is  four  or  five  times  the  larger.  The 
mud-hen,  with  its  bluish-black  plumage  and 
thick-set  head  and  neck,  reminds  one  of  the 
common  crow,  except  that  its  posterior 
anatomy  is  that  of  a  wader.  It  is  about  the 
size  of  a  crow,  and  has  a  croaking  note  that 
is  not  unlike  a  suppressed  caw.  Often, 
when  I  have  been  rowing  or  paddling  on 
some  sluggish  stream  that  winds  through 
the  marshes,  I  have  seen  the  black,  shadowy 
figure  of  the  mud-hen  appear  and  disappear 
around  some  grass-grown  tussock  on  the 
border  of  the  stream.  It  is  a  remarkably 
shy  bird,  and  a  very  swift  runner.  My  dog 
has  sometimes  spied  one  of  them  in  the 
marsh,  swum  ashore,  and  taken  up  its  trail 
with  puppyish  eagerness,  only  to  be  outrun 
and  easily  evaded  by  the  nimble  mud-hen, 
so  securely  at  home  in  the  winding,  watery 
avenues  of  its  natural  Venice. 

The  Wilson's  snipe,  or  English  snipe,  is 
another  mysterious  hermit  of  the  marsh. 

5' 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

A  beautiful  bird  he  is,  too,  somewhat  re- 
sembling the  woodcock  in  contour  and 
plumage,  but  of  slighter  build.  He  arrives 
in  our  northern  latitude  about  the  latter  part 
of  April,  commonly  in  flights  of  from  a 
score  to  a  hundred  birds.  The  flock  settles 
down  in  some  large,  fresh-water  marsh, 
pairs  off,  and  begins  breeding  about  the 
middle  of  May.  You  would  never  suspect 
that  there  were  some  hundreds  of  this  choice 
and  highly  prized  game-bird  in  the  marsh 
lying  so  silent  under  the  midday  sun.  But 
if  you  had  been  on  the  edge  of  the  marsh 
a  little  before  sunrise,  you  might  have  heard, 
high  in  air,  a  most  tender,  sweet,  minor 
note,  now  swelling  loud,  now  dying  away, 
like  the  distant  sound  of  a  shepherd's  whistle 
in  the  Scotch  mountains.  This  is  the  spring 
love-note  of  the  male  snipe.  The  bird  utters 
it,  larklike,  high  in  air,  mounting  upward 
with  a  spiral  flight;  and  then  when  he  has 
voiced  the  longing  of  his  heart  at  the  very 
gate  of  heaven,  he  drops  down  like  an  arrow 
to  the  side  of  his  mate  in  the  marsh.  It  is 
well  worth  a  long  walk  before  breakfast  to 
hear  this  charming,  delicate,  evanescent 
love-note  of  our  most  idyllic  swamp-hermit. 

52 


Some  Hermits  of  the  Marsh 

It  begins  oftentimes  in  the  gray  dawn,  be- 
fore you  can  see  the  bird  at  all ;  and  after 
the  sun  is  fairly  up  you  seldom  hear  it.  The 
arrow-like  drop  of  the  bird,  from  a  height 
where  he  is  a  mere  speck  in  the  sky,  is  a 
beautiful  sight.  The  beholder  wonders  how, 
after  all  his  gyrations,  he  knows  exactly 
where  to  drop  in  that  wilderness  of  marsh 
to  reach  the  side  of  his  listening  love. 

If  you  have  a  pair  of  rubber  boots,  and 
can  endure  the  severe  labor  of  wading  about 
in  the  marsh,  you  may  soon  flush  one  or 
a  pair  of  these  snipe.  They  rise  with  a 
hoarse  squeak,  that  suggests  the  sucking 
sound  of  a  boot  drawn  quickly  out  of  the 
mud,  and  dart  away  in  swift,  twisting  flight 
— "corkscrew,"  the  sportsmen  call  it — that 
is  verily  like  "a  streak  of  lightning  in  feath- 
ers." I  have  seen  one  of  them  dodge  a  hawk 
in  this  way,  until  the  fierce  bird  of  prey  gave 
up  the  chase  in  despair.  Gunners  are  often 
foiled  by  the  quick,  irregular  flight  of  the 
snipe,  and  find  it  the  hardest  of  all  game- 
birds  to  bring  to  bag. 

The  plumage  of  the  snipe  is  a  beautifully 
mottled  gray  and  brown,  the  under  parts 
several  shades  lighter  than  the  upper.  It 

53 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

is  a  noticeably  graceful  bird  in  form  and 
action,  and  by  far  the  most  attractive  of 
all  the  hermits  of  the  marsh.  With  the 
first  frosts  in  the  fall  the  Wilson's  snipe 
starts  once  more  upon  its  semi-yearly  pil- 
grimage, journeying  toward  the  far  South 
by  easy  stages,  and  running  as  best  it  can 
the  gauntlet  of  fire  that  meets  it  all  along 
the  route. 


54 


PILGRIMS  OF  THE  NIGHT 

THE;  migration  of  birds  is  one  of  the  most 
puzzling  secrets  of  nature.  We  know  very 
little  accurately  and  scientifically  about  it, 
for  the  excellent  reason  that  the  phenomena 
of  these  semi-annual  pilgrimages  are  ex- 
tremely difficult  to  observe.  Birds  as  a  rule 
migrate  in  the  night,  and  at  such  a  great 
height  above  the  surface  of  the  earth  that, 
even  in  the  brightest  moonlight,  they  are 
seldom  visible.  The  only  intimations  we 
have  of  their  passage  (save  when  they  cross 
the  disk  of  the  moon)  are  the  faint,  eerie, 
swiftly-vanishing  notes  that  float  down  to  us 
through  the  air  of  a  still  spring  or  autumn 
night.  And  even  these  notes,  as  a  discrim- 
inating writer  on  ornithology  has  pointed 
out,  are  of  little  help  in  determining  the 
species  of  bird  that  may  be  speeding  its  way 
over  us  at  the  time,  because  they  are  quite 
different  from  the  ordinary  notes  uttered 
while  these  birds  are  residents  of  our  woods 
and  fields.  Any  student  of  birds  who  has 
55 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

paid  much  attention  to  these  voices  of  the 
night,  in  the  migrating  season,  must  have 
noticed  how  very  much  alike  in  general 
character  they  are — commonly  a  clear,  thin, 
elfin  whistle,  short  in  duration,  and  rapidly 
repeated,  with  a  sort  of  unearthly  and  phan- 
tom quality,  as  if  the  bird  uttering  it  were 
in  a  state  of  ethereal  frenzy,  caught  away 
like  a  spirit  through  great  gulfs  of  space, 
and  crying  to  its  fellows  half  in  fear  and 
half  in  rapture. 

Many  species  of  birds,  especially  the 
smaller  songsters,  utter  migratory  cries 
which  are  practically  indistinguishable  from 
one  another.  If  you  happen  to  be  lying 
awake  on  a  lowery,  still,  warmish  spring 
night  (with  your  window  open,  I  hope,  for 
no  genuine  lover  of  nature  is  squeamish 
about  night  air),  you  will  very  likely  hear 
many  of  these  elfin  voices  out  of  the  sky, 
beginning  faintly,  increasing  rapidly  in  vol- 
ume, and  then  dying  as  rapidly  away.  With 
the  exception  of  such  large  and  coarse- 
voiced  birds  as  the  water-fowl,  the  cries  of 
these  aerial  pilgrims  will  sound  alike  to  your 
ear — the  same  tremulous,  thin,  clear,  rather 
melancholy  whistle,  with  that  transcendent 

56 


Pilgrims  of  the  Night 

unearthly  quality.  This  fact  has  led  some 
writers  to  query  whether  there  may  not  be 
a  universal  migratory  call  among  the  birds 
of  the  air,  familiar  to  and  understood  by  all 
species  of  songsters,  as  a  sort  of  rallying 
cry  or  exchange  of  greetings — just  as  men 
of  all  races  use  salutations  that  are  so  much 
alike  as  to  be  perfectly  intelligible  every- 
where. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  we  can  evidently  rely 
little  upon  the  migratory  cries  of  birds  as 
a  means  of  identifying  species;  and,  as  I 
have  said,  the  flights  being  chiefly  by  night, 
and  at  a  considerable  distance  above  the  sur- 
face of  the  earth,  it  is  equally  impossible  to 
identify  the  various  species  of  migrants  by 
sight.  The  only  way  we  can  trace  the 
courses  of  these  flights,  in  spring  and  au- 
tumn, and  determine  the  species  of  which 
they  are  composed,  is  to  watch  for  the  birds 
as  they  descend  to  earth  in  the  daytime  to 
rest  and  feed,  and  then  compare  records 
with  other  observers  all  along  the  line. 
Even  in  this  way  we  do  not  get  very  accu- 
rate information  of  routes  and  dates  of  ar- 
rival, because  there  is  always  more  or  less 
confusion  arising  from  the  presence  of  par- 

57 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

tial  or  irregular  migrants  in  various  local- 
ities. Here  in  Massachusetts,  for  instance, 
we  are  growing  more  and  more  uncertain, 
owing  to  the  relaxing  severity  of  our  win- 
ters, whether  to  class  certain  familiar  birds, 
like  robins  and  yellow-hammers  and  blue- 
jays,  among  the  migrants,  or  not.  Cer- 
tainly, an  increasing  number  of  such  birds 
now  remain  with  us  for  the  greater  part,  if 
not  the  whole,  of  every  winter;  and  we  are 
at  a  loss  to  know  whether  the  robin  red- 
breast that  we  see  on  the  1st  of  March  is 
the  leader  of  the  migratory  vanguard,  or 
only  a  bird  neighbor  who  has  remained  with 
us,  silent  and  secluded,  all  winter. 

However,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  great 
majority  of  individuals,  as  well  as  of  spe- 
cies, among  the  songsters  are  still  migra- 
tory ;  and  the  main  body  of  this  great  army 
does  not  return  to  us  in  the  spring  until 
early  in  May.  The  first  and  second  weeks 
in  May  are  the  great  "home  weeks"  for  the 
birds.  Then  it  is  that  the  welcome  tide  of 
song  and  bright  plumage  comes  surging 
back  over  our  North  Atlantic  States  in  one 
mighty  wave.  It  would  seem,  in  some  local- 
ities, as  if  the  whole  company  of  birds  had 
58 


Pilgrims  of  the  Night 

arrived  in  a  night,  and  stationed  themselves 
before  dawn  in  their  accustomed  places  in 
the  great  orchestra,  ready  to  greet  the  sun 
with  a  glorious  burst  of  song  when  he 
should  lift  his  face  above  the  hills. 

In  spite  of  all  vicissitudes  of  weather, 
we  may  look  for  our  little  feathered  friends 
upon  almost  exactly  the  same  dates,  year 
after  year.  I  find  that  my  calendar  of  bird 
arrivals  varies  almost  inappreciably  from 
season  to  season.  I  have  the  robin  down 
(for  Massachusetts)  March  I5th  to  2Oth, 
and  seldom  fail  to  see  or  hear  several  of 
them  thus  early.  The  bluebirds  and  song 
sparrows  come  next,  March  23d  to  28th; 
then  blackbirds  and  fox-sparrows,  April  ist 
to  5th.  These  are  the  very  early  comers. 
They  do  not  belong  to  the  main  body  of  the 
great  army,  which  arrives  late  in  April  and 
early  in  May. 

I  find  that  the  golden  robin  is  the  most 
punctual  and  unvarying  of  all  the  migrants 
I  have  observed.  His  date  for  Boston  and 
vicinity  is  invariably  May  loth.  If  that  day 
is  sunny  and  favorable,  I  am  almost  sure  to 
hear  him  somewhere  in  the  elms  about — 
but  not  before  them.  The  coincidence 

59 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

has  become  so  marked  as  to  be  almost 
amusing. 

The  list  of  May  arrivals  among  the  song- 
sters is  a  long  one,  and  includes,  for  New 
England,  the  thrushes,  wrens,  and  warblers, 
all  the  swallows  and  swift  tribe,  the  wood- 
peckers, phcebe,  vireos,  golden  robins,  king- 
birds, cat-birds,  bobolinks,  cuckoos,  chats, 
and  finches.  Nearly  all  these  birds  have 
wintered  in  the  Southern  States.  Some, 
however,  have  gone  as  far  south  as  Mexico, 
and  a  few  to  South  America  and  the  West 
Indies.  Some  of  the  very  smallest  birds 
make  the  longest  migratory  flights.  Thus, 
a  writer  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  calls  at- 
tention to  a  diminutive  humming-bird,  the 
flame-bearer  (Selasphorus  rufus),  which 
breeds  on  the  west  coast  of  America  as  far 
north  as  Alaska  and  Bering  Island,  and  win- 
ters in  Lower  California  and  Mexico,  cov- 
ering in  each  migration  more  than  three 
thousand  miles. 

Probably,  three-fourths  of  our  New  Eng- 
land birds  do  not  go  farther  south  in  the 
winter  than  the  northern  border  of  the  Gulf 
States.  Their  line  of  flight  has  been  pretty 
definitely  traced,  in  both  migrations.  It 
60 


Pilgrims  of  the  Night 

follows  the  Atlantic  Coast  in  a  broad  belt, 
widening  as  it  extends  northward  in  the 
spring,  and  narrowing  correspondingly  in 
the  fall.  The  Mississippi  Valley  and  the 
Pacific  Coast  are  the  pathways  of  the  other 
two  great  streams  of  feathered  pilgrims,  in 
the  United  States.  For  some  unexplained 
reason  birds  always  shape  the  course  of  their 
migrations  by  large  bodies  of  water — prob- 
ably because  of  the  guidance  which  these 
afford. 

One  other  curious  fact  should  be  men- 
tioned concerning  our  migrating  songsters, 
and  that  is  that  the  older  male  birds  invari- 
ably go  ahead,  the  females  and  younger 
birds  following  somewhat  later.  The  reason 
for  this  has  never  been  satisfactorily  deter- 
mined. We  may  assume  that  it  is  the  desire 
of  the  males  somehow  to  "clear  the  way" 
for  the  females — an  expression  of  that  gal- 
antry  or  chivalry  so  noticeable  among  birds. 
I,  for  one,  should  be  very  loth  to  believe 
that  the  male  birds  hasten  away  first,  as 
some  men  undoubtedly  do,  to  have  a  good 
time  among  themselves  before  the  arrival 
of  their  wives  and  children! 


61 


OPENING  CAMP 

A  RED-LETTER  day — May  2Oth.  I  rode 
out  to  the  mouth  of  the  river,  and  opened 
the  little  green  camphouse  for  the  season. 
Not  that  I  expect  to  take  up  my  abode 
there — though  I  have  had  wild  thoughts  of 
it — or  spend  under  its  tarred  roof  a  tenth 
part  of  the  busy  days  yet  to  come  before 
midsummer  vacation.  But  the  prospect  of 
a  day  off  now  and  then,  or  a  night,  out  on 
the  edge  of  those  wide,  peaceful  marshes, 
with  their  vibrant  lullabies — how  it  re- 
freshes me !  The  spin  beyond  the  car-tracks 
into  the  gathering  dusk,  leaving  the  garish 
lights  of  the  city  far  behind ;  the  cool  even- 
ing breeze  in  one's  face;  the  first  fragrant 
whiff  of  the  marshes ;  the  faint  glimmer  of 
the  distant  lighthouse;  the  drowsy  croak- 
ing of  frogs — what  immediate  restfulness 
in  all  these  things  for  the  lover  of  nature, 
wearied  by  the  strain  of  city  life !  The  very 
thought  of  my  little  green  camphouse 
62 


Opening  Camp 

brings  rest  to  me  in  the  midst  of  toil ;  and 
when  I  can  slip  away  and  visit  it  for  a  few 
hours,  during  the  outdoor  season,  the  respite 
is  like  a  dip  in  the  fountain  of  perpetual 
youth. 

When  I  released  the  brass  padlock,  and 
flung  open  the  door  of  my  little  camphouse, 
this  morning,  the  whiff  of  old  associations 
and  delights  almost  unmanned  me — in  the 
sense,  I  mean,  of  setting  me  back  to  boy- 
hood's days,  with  their  rapture  and  buoy- 
ancy and  light-heartedness.  To  one  who 
has  never  had  any  associations  of  the  kind, 
I  suppose,  the  odor  of  that  tightly-closed 
cabin  would  have  seemed  offensively  musty 
and  compounded  of  innumerable  rank  and 
disagreeable  smells.  But  to  my  discerning 
nostrils  it  was  more  grateful  than  the  spicy 
gales  of  the  Orient.  The  impact  of  each 
separate  odor  upon  my  olfactory  nerves 
brought  a  shock  of  delightful  remembrance. 
Every  tiniest  particle  of  that  impalpable 
dust,  which,  scientists  tell  us,  emanates  from 
things  smellable,  had  some  exquisite  report 
to  make  to  my  brain.  Ah !  the  first  whiff 
of  the  old  camp,  when  you  open  it  in  the 
spring!  Who  can  describe  it?  You  must 

63 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

be  a  camper,  born  and  bred,  to  appreciate 
it.  Some  one  has  aptly  said  that  the  nose 
is  memory's  handle.  Surely,  nothing  brings 
back  old  sensations,  feelings,  experiences, 
with  such  vividness  and  poignancy  as  a  lin- 
gering odor. 

I  stepped  into  the  close,  sweltering  camp, 
threw  open  shutters  and  windows,  and  sat 
down  on  a  camp-chair  to  feast  my  eyes  on 
well-remembered  objects.  There,  under  the 
bunk  opposite,  stood  the  old  gray  chest, 
filled  with  fishing-tackle  and  other  sporting 
gear.  Already  my  fingers  itched  to  unlock 
it  and  overhaul  its  familiar  contents.  At 
the  end  of  the  bunk  was  the  table,  with  its 
stained  oilcloth  covering,  sugar-bowl,  salt 
and  pepper  grouped  in  the  center,  just  as  I 
left  them  last  fall ;  and  at  the  farther  end  the 
little  kitchen  lamp  with  its  olive-green  paper 
shade. 

On  the  opposite  side  of  the  room,  in  the 
corner,  were  stove  and  wood-box,  the  little 
stove  red  with  rust,  yet  sound  and  ready 
for  roaring  duty  at  the  flash  of  a  match, 
the  wood-box  providently  overflowing  with 
driftwood  and  fat  pine  knots.  Nearer  at 
hand  was  the  rude  open  cupboard,  screwed 
64 


Opening  Camp 

against  the  wall,  its  stout  crockery  and 
plebeian  tinware  waiting  patiently  to  be  put 
to  service.  Overhead,  stretched  across  the 
scantling  beams,  were  my  fishing-rods,  my 
canoe,  and  two  canvas  cots.  A  sink,  with 
a  small  square  mirror  hanging  over  it,  com- 
pleted the  general  features  of  this  familiar 
interior.  Is  there  a  camper  who  does  not 
recognize  the  picture  and  love  it  ? 

My  wife  drove  out  from  town,  about  mid- 
forenoon,  and  found  me,  already  grown 
ravenous  with  hunger,  washing  some  pota- 
toes that  had  sprouted  in  the  sack.  "You 
need  n't  bother  with  them,"  she  said.  "I 
have  brought  a  big  basketful  of  lunch. 
Shall  we  eat  it  now  ?"  There  could  be  but 
one  interpretation  of  the  eagerness  with 
which  I  scrambled  for  the  back  end  of  the 
carriage;  and  presently  we  were  sitting  on 
the  tiny  veranda  of  our  camp,  discussing 
such  chicken  sandwiches  and  cold  coffee  as 
only  deft  and  loving  female  fingers  can  pre- 
pare. The  sun  shone  brightly  over  the 
broad  marshes;  the  breeze  was  delicious; 
and  everywhere  nature's  greens  were  so 
fresh  and  vivid  and  intense  that  one  behold- 
ing them  could  but  feel  a  twinge  of  reproach 

5  65 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

for  all  he  had  ever  said  in  contempt  of  im- 
pressionist painters. 

My  wife,  with  a  woman's  first  instinct 
upon  stepping  over  a  threshold,  ran  her 
finger  along  the  table-cover,  and  daintily 
touched  the  dishes  in  the  cupboard,  as  we 
carried  our  dirty  plates  and  cups  inside. 

"Why !"  she  exclaimed.  "Have  you  been 
dusting  ?" 

"No,  I  have  not,"  I  replied.  "I  never  do 
such  a  thing." 

"Is  n't  it  strange  ?"  she  went  on.  "There 
is  n't  a  particle  of  dust  in  camp." 

"Dust  is  something  you  will  not  find  in 
unspoiled  nature,  my  dear,"  I  answered. 
"Civilization,  roads,  cities,  are  the  dust- 
breeders.  Nature  is  always  tidy.  Here,  by 
the  marshes  and  under  the  trees,  she  knows 
nothing  of  dust." 

My  wife  looked  at  me  incredulously.  "I 
do  n't  believe  it !"  she  cried,  at  length.  "You 
want  to  get  me  to  say  that  I  should  like 
to  live  here  all  the  year  round,  and  then  you 
would  eagerly  declare  that  it  should  be  as 
I  wish.  I  know  you!  Now  you  may  take 
this  pail  and  go  down  to  the  river  for  dish- 
water." 

66 


Opening  Camp 

I  took  the  pail  and  went,  in  a  kind  of 
dumb  awe  at  the  intuition  of  women.  I 
had  indeed  cherished,  that  day,  wild,  ro- 
mantic dreams  of  setting  up  a  permanent 
domicile  in  the  woods,  and  riding  into  town 
on  my  wheel  every  day,  to  do  business.  But 
almost  any  wild  notion  may  be  forgiven  a 
man  in  the  first  stages  of  the  annual  delir- 
ium of  camp-fever ! 

I  swung  a  hammock  for  my  wife,  in  the 
afternoon,  and  she  lay  there  rocking  in  the 
breeze  like  an  oriole  in  her  pendent  nest. 
But  as  for  me,  I  could  not  spend  the  day 
otherwise  than  in  a  kind  of  delicious,  aim- 
less puttering  about  camp.  If  I  sat  down 
for  a  moment,  some  imperative  task  not  yet 
performed  was  sure  to  occur  to  me,  and  I 
was  up  in  an  instant  to  set  about  it.  Yet 
what  I  actually  accomplished  neither  I  nor 
my  wife  could  definitely  declare.  The  camp 
and  all  its  surroundings  looked  precisely  the 
same  when  we  left  it,  late  in  the  afternoon, 
as  it  had  when  I  arrived  there,  early  in  the 
morning.  Yet  I  had  been  as  busy  as  a 
spring  muskrat  all  day.  "Well,  never 
mind,"  said  my  wife,  "so  long  as  you  are 
satisfied." 

67 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

"I  am  satisfied,"  I  declared,  stoutly  and 
truthfully.  "I  have  had  a  delightful  day, 
and  I  have  n't  been  any  farther  from  camp 
than  the  river  bank,  either.  Next  time  I 
come,  things  will  be  in  shape  to  do  some- 
thing." 

I  locked  my  wheel  inside  the  camp  and 
rode  home  with  my  wife.  The  marshes 
faded  away  behind,  and  the  city  smoke  be- 
gan to  stain  the  sky  in  front  of  us. 

"After  all,"  said  my  wife,  "without  mod- 
ern civilization  and  the  contrast  it  affords, 
should  we  thoroughly  appreciate  nature?" 

"No!"  I  replied,  gratefully.  "You  have 
touched  the  secret  of  it,  my  dear.  The 
brick-front  in  town  is  largely  responsible 
for  the  charm  of  the  little  green  camphouse 
by  the  river." 


68 


BIRDS  FROM  A  SUBURBAN  WIN- 
DOW 

MY  up-stairs  study  window  overlooks  a 
narrow  strip  of  unreclaimed  land  in  a  sub- 
urban town,  five  miles  from  the  heart  of  a 
great  city.  This  little  wildwood  patch  of 
mine  (I  call  it  mine,  though  it  was  sliced 
into  lots,  sold  and  mortgaged,  long  ago) 
contains  about  four  acres  of  low,  moist  land, 
grown  up  to  soft  maples,  birches,  and  alders. 
A  real  country  tangle  of  blackberry  bushes, 
buttonwood,  and  hardback  covers  the 
ground,  except  where  the  alders  grow  along 
the  brook,  and  all  the  year  round  the  birds 
find  in  this  snug  covert  shelter,  food  and 
nesting-places.  I  can  sit  at  my  south  win- 
dow, and,  literally,  look  down  into  the  pri- 
vate apartments  of  my  feathered  neighbors. 
It  is  a  rare  opportunity  for  one  who  loves 
to  study  birds — a  privilege  which  more  than 
doubles  the  value  of  my  property  to  me. 

There  is  hardly  a  variety  of  the  com- 
moner and  more  domesticated  birds  of  the 
69 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

North  Atlantic  seaboard  that  does  not  fre- 
quent my  swamp  and  sing  under  my  win- 
dow. I  have  identified  nearly  every  bird 
given  in  Dr.  Coues's  tables  as  proper  to 
this  locality,  including  some  of  the  rarer 
wood  birds,  which  I  supposed  never  ven- 
tured so  near  the  outposts  of  a  large  city. 
But  I  have  learned  that  even  the  shyest 
birds  will  come  into  our  parks  and  suburbs 
if  we  entice  them  with  the  proper  natural 
conditions.  A  bit  of  real  wildwood  any- 
where will  bring  them,  but  it  must  be  real 
wildwood,  untrimmed  and  untraversed  by 
orderly  paths,  left  just  as  it  was  when  na- 
ture abandoned  it,  in  her  hasty  departure 
to  a  more  congenial  dwelling,  carelessly 
overturned,  with  odds  and  ends  scattered 
everywhere.  The  birds  do  not  care  how 
close  to  our  houses  they  come,  so  long  as 
we  leave  them  their  natural  coverts.  But 
there  are  conservatives  among  them,  who 
will  not  be  bamboozled  by  man's  so-called 
improvements  upon  nature.  You  could  not 
get  such  birds  to  build  their  nests  in  a 
shaved  and  tonsured  park,  unless  you  spread 
a  net  over  it  and  imprisoned  them  there. 
Fortunately,  nobody  has  thought  it  worth 
70 


Birds  from  a  Suburban  Window 

while  to  do  anything  to  "improve"  my 
swamp.  There  it  lies,  in  all  its  unkempt 
wildness,  drawing  the  birds  from  near  and 
far,  for  my  own  and  my  neighbors'  delight. 
There  has  even  been  some  talk  among  us, 
dwellers  upon  its  borders,  of  buying  out 
for  a  song  (as  we  might)  the  equities  and 
mortgages  and  other  legal  encumbrances 
upon  those  swamp  lots,  and  dedicating  our 
birds'  paradise  to  nature  in  perpetuum.  I 
certainly  hope  we  may  some  time  feel  rich 
enough  to  do  it. 

From  my  suburban  window  I  have 
watched  the  comings  and  goings  of  the 
birds  now  for  four  years.  And  there  is 
not  a  month  in  the  year  when  I  have  not 
been  richly  rewarded  for  the  hours  and 
moments  thus  spent.  Even  in  the  dead  of 
winter  the  sheltered  swamp  has  scarcely 
for  a  single  day  been  untenanted. 

I  recall,  particularly,  one  very  cold  Sun- 
day in  January,  when  there  was  a  regular 
flight  of  half-frozen  and  half-starved  birds 
into  this  cover.  Early  in  the  morning,  be- 
fore it  was  fairly  light,  I  heard  the  feeble 
and  disconsolate  cawing  of  half  a  dozen 
crows,  from  the  southeast  corner  of  the 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

swamp.  When  I  rose  and  looked  out  I  saw 
them  huddled  there,  in  two  trees,  as  far 
away  from  the  cutting  edge  of  the  north- 
west wind  as  they  could  get.  Every  now 
and  then  one  or  another  of  them  would  get 
weakly  upon  the  wing,  fly  a  short  distance 
against  the  wind,  and  then  return  to  his 
perch — exercising,  I  suppose,  to  keep  his 
blood  in  circulation.  It  reminded  me  of  a 
cabman,  walking  to  and  fro  at  his  stand,  and 
slapping  his  hands  under  his  arms.  These 
crows  staid  in  the  grove  most  of  the  day, 
utterly  heedless  of  passers-by,  and  com- 
plained as  distinctly  as  if  in  words  of  their 
hunger  and  cold.  Their  distress  was  really 
pitiful,  but  there  seemed  no  way  of  reliev- 
ing it.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  afternoon 
the  crows  took  their  departure,  a  sad,  sable 
company,  winging  slowly  southward. 

The  sun  had  not  long  been  up,  on  this 
bitter  Sunday  morning,  when  I  saw  two 
hairy  woodpeckers,  blown  or  tossed,  as  it 
were,  into  the  swamp  by  the  fierce  north- 
west wind.  They  wheeled  and  alighted  on 
the  trunks  of  two  adjoining  trees,  where 
the  sun  struck  on  the  northeast  side.  Here, 
somewhat  protected  from  the  wind,  and 
72 


Birds  from  a  Suburban  Window 

comforted  by  the  slight  warmth  of  the 
sun,  they  clung,  hugging  the  bark,  for  an 
hour  or  more.  I  watched  them  closely,  but 
could  not  see  that  they  made  any  move- 
ment whatever  after  alighting.  Neither  of 
them  once  struck  the  tree  with  his  bill.  It 
was  evident  that  they  were  there  simply 
for  shelter.  I  watched  them  until  other  ar- 
rivals diverted  my  attention.  Several  times 
during  the  day  I  saw  them  in  the  swamp, 
always  occupying,  or  seeking,  sheltered 
spots  on  the  trunks  of  the  trees. 

The  next  arrival  was  a  blue  jay,  who 
seemed  to  have  more  life  in  him,  as  he 
flew  rapidly  from  tree  to  tree,  springing  his 
rattle  and  scolding  vigorously.  He  kept  up 
his  vituperative  language  for  twenty  min- 
utes or  so,  but  finally,  as  if  incensed  at  the 
total  apathy  of  the  other  birds,  flew  away, 
to  agitate  elsewhere. 

While  the  jay  was  still  complaining,  three 
flickers  arrived,  conspicuous  in  flight  be- 
cause of  their  size  and  their  white  rumps. 
I  heard  one  of  them  utter  his  sharp,  mock- 
ing cry  (so  like  a  loon's  laugh,  on  a  small 
scale),  as  they  came  dashing  into  the  grove; 
but  after  they  had  alighted,  at  some  little 
73 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

distance  from  one  another,  they  kept  per- 
fectly still.  I  saw  one  of  them,  a  little 
later,  make  a  short  flight  through  the  cen- 
ter of  the  swamp;  but  after  that  I  did  not 
get  another  glimpse  of  them.  I  think,  very 
likely,  they  spent  some  time  silently  perched 
in  the  trees.  The  flicker  is  often  very  phil- 
osophical in  this  respect.  He  will  sit  at  the 
base  of  a  limb  and  meditate  like  an  owl  for 
a  considerable  time.  But,  if  a  human  being 
appears  in  the  vicinity,  he  utters  his  note  of 
alarm  and  is  off. 

Besides  the  birds  I  have  already  men- 
tioned, some  snow-buntings  and  a  junco 
visited  the  swamp,  that  cold  Sunday  morn- 
ing, and  seemed  to  find  it  a  comparatively 
comfortable  spot,  remaining  for  an  hour  or 
more. 

Occasionally,  during  the  winter,  a  tit- 
mouse busies  himself  about  the  edges  of 
the  swamp,  hunting  for  larvae  in  the  bark, 
or  a  purple  finch,  rarest  of  visitants,  pauses 
conspicuously  on  a  bare  limb,  to  debate 
whether  he  will  venture  any  further  town- 
ward.  But  the  list  of  winter  birds  visible 
from  my  window  is  necessarily  small;  and 
it  is  not  until  about  the  middle  of  March 
74 


Birds  from  a  Suburban  Window 

that  my  note-book  begins  to  show  many 
entries  devoted  to  my  feathered  neighbors. 
But  some  morning  in  March,  just  after  a 
sugar-snow,  perhaps,  I  wake  with  a  thrill 
of  boyish  delight,  to  hear  the  sweet,  brave, 
joyish  cadenza  of  the  song-sparrow,  rising 
from  the  buttonwood  thicket  on  the  other 
side  of  the  swamp.  I  get  my  field-glass 
and  search  eagerly  for  the  little  singer.  Ah, 
there  he  is,  a  little  grayish  brown  patch 
among  the  whitened  twigs.  How  he  pours 
out  his  jubilant  soul,  in  tones  as  clear  and 
ringing  as  those  of  some  elfin  violinist! 
One  of  the  first  comers  of  the  bird-choir, 
in  this  section,  his  cheery  song  marks,  for 
me,  the  real  beginning  of  the  bird-year,  and 
fills  me  with  that  ever-fresh,  keen,  almost 
poignant  longing,  that  comes  to  every  na- 
ture-lover in  the  spring. 

From  that  time  on,  my  patch  of  wild- 
wood  begins  to  be  a  veritable  bower  of 
song.  Every  morning  announces  some  new 
arrival,  and  there  is  a  vivacious  musical 
hubbub  under  my  window,  that  reminds  me 
of  the  reopening  of  a  girls'  school  after 
the  long  vacation.  Comes  robin ;  comes 
scarlet-epauletted  blackbird,  choking  with 

75 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

gossip  in  the  alders.  The  bluebird  pro- 
claims his  return  in  the  sweetest  song  of 
all.  Then  the  delicate  trilling  of  the  field- 
sparrows  and  vesper-sparrows  breaks  into 
the  medley.  Then,  toward  the  last  of  April, 
you  hear  the  rich  contralto  of  the  brown 
thrasher  in  the  depths  of  the  thickening 
foliage.  At  last  arrives  the  final  section  of 
the  bird-express,  crowded  with  the  gay 
singers  who  make  up  the  chorus — the  wrens 
and  wood-thrushes,  the  various  warblers, 
the  vireos,  the  orioles,  the  catbirds,  the 
whip-poor-wills,  the  bobolinks,  the  pewees, 
the  yellow-throats,  the  tanagers,  the  indigo- 
birds,  and  so  many  others  that  one  almost 
despairs  of  keeping  tally  of  them  all. 

Then  what  a  pleasant  place  to  sit,  in  the 
lingering,  delicious  evenings  of  May  and 
June,  is  my  study  window,  overlooking  a 
paradise  of  birds !  I  lean  back,  as  the  soft, 
fragrant  breeze  steals  into  the  room,  and 
the  feathered  choir  sings  its  vesper  hymn, 
and  give  myself  up  to  the  joy  of  the  love  of 
nature.  What  a  holy  thing  it  is,  this  na- 
ture-love, what  a  pure,  sweet,  religious 
thing !  You  can  not  put  it  into  a  creed,  or 
even  into  a  psalm;  but  it  lifts  you,  some- 
76 


Birds  from  a  Suburban  Window 

how,  until  you  feel  that  you  are  very  near 
to  God,  and  near  to  the  heart  of  that  which 
gives  joy  to  immortal  beings.  I  believe  we 
shall  never  know,  until  it  is  revealed  to  us 
in  the  other  life,  how  much  the  birds — the 
innocent,  pure  singers  of  the  air — have  done 
to  lift  humanity  above  its  baser  instincts, 
and  make  men  more  worthy  to  be  called  the 
sons  of  God. 


77 


BIRD-SONGS  INTERPRETED 

WHEN  the  bird-choir  is  in  full  song,  as  it 
is  during  May  and  June,  it  is  interesting 
and  often  perplexing  to  seek  to  unravel  the 
different  phrases  of  melody,  and  distinguish 
them  one  from  another.  The  beginner  in 
bird-study  will  find  this  a  more  difficult  task 
than  he  imagines.  He  will  be  embarrassed 
both  by  the  confusion  of  tongues,  the  ver- 
itable Babel  of  songs,  and  by  the  fact  that 
there  are  such  slight  shades  of  difference 
between  the  songs  of  several  birds  of  allied 
species.  The  songs  of  the  various  sparrows, 
for  instance,  are  much  alike  in  general  char- 
acter, and  it  takes  an  ear  trained  to  details 
to  tell  which  is  which.  Add  to  these  more 
general  causes  of  confusion  the  fact  that 
different  individuals  of  the  same  bird  fam- 
ily often  have  slight  idiosyncrasies  and  vari- 
ations of  songs,  and  the  difficulty  of  identi- 
fying our  multitudinous  summer  songsters 
by  their  notes  becomes  trebled. 

In  my  own  endeavors  to  name  birds  from 

78 


Bird-Songs  Interpreted 

their  songs,  I  have  derived  much  help  from 
the  somewhat  whimsical  translations  that 
have  been  made  by  naturalists  of  various 
bird-songs  into  their  corresponding  English 
phrases.  For  instance,  after  reading  Mr. 
Burroughs's  charming  description  of  the 
oven-bird  or  golden-crowned  thrush  and  its 
song,  I  have  never  had  the  least  difficulty 
in  naming  it  from  that  sweetly  intense, 
crescendo  cry  in  the  summer  woods  of 
"Teacher,  teacher,  TEACHER!"  as  if  the  bird 
were  appealing  with  childish  insistence  to 
some  prim,  unheeding  preceptress  of  a 
feathered  school. 

A  boy  once  asked  me :  "What  is  that  bird 
that  sings  so  much  in  the  summer,  and  goes, 
Rickety-rickety-rickety?"  I  identified  the 
songster  at  once  by  the  boy's  literal  render- 
ing of  its  phrase,  as  the  Maryland  yellow- 
throat,  and  have  ever  since  been  unable  to 
translate  its  song  into  any  other  English 
equivalent.  So,  if  you  should  chance  to 
catch,  some  summer,  a  rapid  proclamation 
of  weak-jointedness  in  bird  language,  you 
may  jot  down  in  your  note-book  that  you 
have  heard  a  Maryland  yellow-throat. 

The  other  morning  I  woke  up  at  dawn 

79 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

and  heard  a  robin's  early  carol.  The  song 
presently  adjusted  itself  in  my  drowsy 
brain  to  an  amusing  but  very  expressive 
and  exactly  imitative  English  jingle,  as  fol- 
lows: 

"Amelia  Chow-chow, 
Amelia  Chow-chow, 
Pretty  Amelia, 
Pretty  Amelia, 
Pretty  Amelia  Chow-chow !" 

Now  and  then  the  bird  varied  its  song  by 
reversing  the  order  of  phrases.  It  would 
cry  with  sweet,  ringing  resonance,  "Chow- 
chow!"  Then  there  would  be  a  pause,  fol- 
lowed by  "Amelia,"  or  "Pretty  Amelia." 
But  the  song  was  always  some  combination 
of  the  phrases  I  have  named. 

I  have  often  tried  to  make  English  of  the 
impassioned,  choking  melody  of  the  bobo- 
link, whose  flute  seems  overfull  of  music,  so 
that  the  notes  trip  over  each  other's  heels  as 
they  rush  out.  But  the  bird's  language  is 
too  rapid  for  distinct  enunciation  in  any 
tongue.  He  is  like  a  feathered  Demos- 
thenes with  pebbles  in  his  mouth.  But, 
fortunately,  there  is  no  other  strain  like  his 
in  all  birddom,  so  that  it  does  not  need 
80 


Bird- Songs  Interpreted 

translation  in  order  that  the  bird-student 
may  know  it. 

The  least  flycatcher  is  another  of  our 
wood-birds  whose  note  there  is  no  mistak- 
ing. Not  much  of  a  singer  is  he,  to  be  sure, 
with  his  dry,  crisp,  two-syllabled  phrase. 
But  you  may  know  him,  so  to  speak,  by  his 
destination,  since  all  summer  long  he  an- 
nounces, with  a  curiously  positive  futility, 
that  he  is  for  Quebec,  Quebec — a  city  he 
will  never  see,  since  early  in  October  he  is 
off  for  a  climate  very  different  from  that  of 
Canada. 

The  red-winged  blackbird  has  a  very  rich 
and  positive  song,  that  is  easily  phrased. 
There  is  a  reedlike  quality  in  it,  resembling 
the  tone  of  a  clarinet,  and  when  the  bird  sits 
in  the  fork  of  a  swaying  alder,  in  some  rank 
swamp,  with  his  red  shoulders  flashing  in 
the  sun,  and  cries,  "A  romp  for  me!  A  romp 
for  me!"  you  can  not  easily  mistake  his 
identity.  But  there  is  often  such  a  chorus 
of  these  gregarious  and  sociable  birds  that 
the  individual  notes  are  quite  lost  track  of, 
and  you  can  hear  nothing  but  a  rich  con- 
fusion of  sounds,  like  a  disorderly  assem- 
blage of  contraltos. 

6  Si 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

The  Baltimore  oriole  has  a  fine,  clear  note, 
but  his  song  is  of  little  variety.  He  sits  in 
an  elm-tree,  near  his  pendent  nest,  where 
the  hidden  female  broods  her  eggs,  and  re- 
peats, "Chuckie,  chuckle,  chuckle,"  all  the 
beautiful  June  day.  One  wishes  those  ex- 
quisite notes  could  be  prolonged  into  a  song 
of  greater  extent  and  variety.  Yet,  even  in 
their  persistent  monotony  they  add  an  in- 
expressible charm  to  the  soft,  fragrant  air 
and  blue  skies  of  early  summer. 

Our  night  singer,  the  whip-poor-will,  re- 
peats a  phrase  which  no  one  can  mistake.  I 
do  not  see  how  any  one  could  imagine  other 
syllables  for  it  than  those  which  have  given 
the  bird  its  name.  Yet  there  are  certain 
elided  or  obscured  syllables  in  the  song  that 
are  distinguishable  only  when  the  bird  is 
singing  near  at  hand — rough  breathings,  as 
it  were,  which,  I  find,  many  students  of  bird- 
language  have  never  heard  at  all.  While 
camping  in  the  woods,  I  have  often  heard 
the  whip-poor-will  break  into  song  within  a 
few  yards  of  my  lean-to,  and  have  marked 
without  difficulty  the  grace-notes  in  its  song. 
In  its  completeness,  the  whip-poor-will's  lay 
goes  as  follows:  Whip  (ah) -poor-will  (ah). 
82 


Bird-Songs  Interpreted 

The  whip  and  will  are  the  two  accented 
notes  of  the  song,  and  after  each  of  them 
the  bird  seems  audibly  to  catch  its  breath 
in  a  quick,  aspirant  ah.  The  effect,  to  one 
who  has  never  heard  it  before,  is  very  pe- 
culiar and  interesting. 

The  white-throated  sparrow  gets  its  com- 
mon name  (Peabody  bird)  from  its  plain 
reiteration  of  the  syllables  pea-bo d-y.  There 
are  also  two  slight,  initial  syllables  in  the 
strain,  which  one  writer  on  birds  likens  to 
ee-ee,  giving  in  all  five  syllables  to  the  song 
or  phrase.  The  beginner  will  have  little 
trouble  in  naming  this  sparrow  from  its 
note. 

The  first  note  of  the  bluebird's  song  cor- 
responds with  the  first  syllable  of  its  name, 
a  clear,  smooth,  open  whistle,  like  b-lo-o-o. 
Then  there  are  two  shorter  syllables,  like 
al-ly.  The  song  is  of  singularly  sweet  qual- 
ity, but  meager.  Indeed,  many  of  the  birds 
which  are  accounted  our  favorite  songsters 
have  really  very  slight  songs.  It  is  the  qual- 
ity rather  than  the  quantity  of  their  vocal 
performance  that  gives  them  pre-eminence. 

Different  ears  often  hear  differently,  and 
I  would  advise  every  beginner  in  bird-study 

83 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

to  fix  the  songs  of  our  common  birds  in  his 
mind  by  the  English  phrases  which  they 
suggest  to  him  rather  than  to  another.  It 
is  remarkable  how  these  odd,  often  whim- 
sical, designations  will  stick  in  the  mind, 
and  enable  a  person  to  recall  a  bird's  name 
long  after  he  would  otherwise  have  for- 
gotten it.  This  is  a  kind  of  mnemonic  sys- 
tem peculiary  suited  to  bird-study;  and,  in 
addition  to  its  usefulness,  it  affords  not  a 
little  entertainment  to  one  who  grows  skilled 
in  the  translation  of  bird-language  into  Eng- 
lish. 


THE  MUSIC  OF  BROOKS 

THE  birds  and  the  brooks  are  the  singers 
in  God's  outdoor  temple.  Other  things 
praise  God  in  other  ways, — the  flowers  by 
their  beauty  and  fragrance,  the  trees  by  their 
strength  and  shelter,  the  showers  by  their 
refreshing  and  fructifying  power,  the  winds 
by  their  purifying  and  seed-scattering  min- 
istries. But  the  birds  and  the  brooks  are 
God's  singers.  This  is  their  special  service 
and  delight. 

The  birds  and  their  music  have  had  many 
loving  and  sympathetic  interpreters.  But 
it  is  of  the  more  neglected  music  of  the 
brooks  that  I  would  ask  leave  to  speak  a  few 
words  here. 

When  I  go  out  into  the  woods  in  the 
spring  or  early  summer,  one  of  the  first 
sounds  I  hear  is  the  dashing  or  tinkling  of 
some  happy  brook;  and  it  always  seems  to 
me  as  if  there  were  real  musical  tones,  and 
a  song  with  living  sweetness  and  meaning 
in  the  sound.  To  many  people,  I  know, 

85 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

brook-music  seems  like  an  unintelligible, 
confused  babble  and  murmur,  without  the 
character  and  distinctness  of  the  songs  of 
birds.  But  I  doubt  if  such  people  have  ever 
listened  very  long  and  intently  to  the  music 
of  a  brook.  It  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  a  more 
classic  music  than  that  of  birds, — less  dis- 
tinctly phrased,  and  harder  to  interpret,  but 
of  deep  and  significant  meaning.  Let  us  sit 
down  here  on  the  bank,  and  listen  for  a  few 
minutes  to  the  music  of  this  small  brook 
that  chatters  over  the  stones. 

Observe,  first,  how  it  does  repeat,  though 
with  delicate  and  subtle  variations,  a  certain 
musical  phrase, — what  you  might  call  a 
motive  or  refrain.  This  phrase  is  sometimes 
prolonged  for  a  minute  or  two,  but  it  finally 
completes  itself,  and,  if  you  listen  closely, 
you  will  hear  it  beginning  over  again,  run- 
ning its  course  with  other  variations  than 
before,  perhaps,  but,  in  the  main,  adhering 
to  its  theme,  and  rounding  out  the  same 
musical  phrase. 

Now,   to  prove  the  correctness  of   my 

theory,  take  two  or  three  large  stones,  and 

drop  them  into  the  water  where  it  babbles 

loudest, — upon  the  sounding-board  of  the 

86 


The  Music  of  Brooks 

brook,  as  it  were.  Sit  down  and  listen  again. 
You  will  notice  that  you  have  changed  the 
music  of  the  brook,  that  it  is  singing  a  new 
phrase,  somewhat  uncertainly  at  first,  but 
gradually  becoming  definite  and  fixed,  as 
the  stones  settle  in  place,  and  the  water 
catches  the  keynote  of  the  new  obstruction. 
How  often  I  have  tried  this  experiment,  for 
the  sake  of  seeing  how  many  different  songs 
there  are  in  the  heart  of  a  brook!  It  re- 
minds me  of  the  changed  music  of  a  life, — 
a  life  that  meets  new  obstructions,  new  fret- 
tings,  new  trials,  only  to  make  a  new  song 
out  of  them. 

But  you  will  notice,  further,  that  the 
tinkling  brook  has  not  only  a  rhythm,  a 
metrical  phrase,  but  a  melody,  due  to  vari- 
ations of  pitch.  The  notes  run  into  each 
other  more  confusingly  than  in  the  clearly 
defined  songs  of  birds ;  they  have  more  of 
the  sliding-scale  quality,  and  remind  one  of 
the  sweet,  slurring,  cascading  tones  of  toy 
trombones.  But  there  is  actual  melody  in 
the  music  of  the  brook.  It  is  a  light- 
hearted,  careless,  somewhat  indefinite  song, 
like  the  extemporizing  of  a  boy  who  whistles 
with  an  overflowing  heart,  too  riotously 

87 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

happy  to  be  tied  down  to  any  conventional 
music,  be  it  hymn  or  jig.  But  it  is  a  song; 
it  has  rhythm  and  changing  pitch,  and  runs 
its  own  liquid  scale  with  sweet  effect. 

You  will  find  a  good  many  different 
phrases  in  this  music  of  water  babbling  over 
stones  as  you  go  up  or  down  the  brook,  but 
it  is  all  the  same  song, — a  song  of  the  most 
distinct  happiness  and  gratitude  and  light- 
heartedness,  a  real  child-song,  like  the  sweet, 
treble  humming  of  a  care-free  boy  or  girl. 
I  think  the  Master  of  the  temple  must  love 
to  hear  this  child-choir  music.  It  must  be 
as  dear  to  him  as  the  happy  voices  of  our 
children  to  us. 

But  come  now  and  listen  to  the  music 
of  another  brook,  a  larger  brook,  that  goes 
foaming  down  steep  rocky  stairways,  in 
mighty  columns  and  rounding  cataracts  of 
water.  Its  grand  voice  can  be  heard  far 
through  the  woods,  like  the  roaring  of  a 
great  wind. 

If  the  brook  that  tinkles  over  pebbles  is 
the  treble  among  God's  singers,  this  roaring 
torrent  in  the  bass.  Or,  if  the  former  seems 
like  a  delicate-stringed  instrument,  this  is 
the  mighty  organ.  It  is  the  grandest  voice 
88 


The  Music  of  Brooks 

in  nature's  woodland  worship,  that  which 
gives  it  dignity  and  solemnity. 

We  shall  find  that  we  get  very  different 
impressions  from  this  brook-music  as  we 
listen  to  it  attentively.  It  is  a  magnificent 
rushing  or  pouring  together  of  many  sounds 
and  meanings.  The  song  of  the  smaller 
brook  was  a  melody.  This  song  is  a 
crowded  harmony,  in  which  the  tones  are 
so  many  and  powerful  and  difficult  to  sepa- 
rate from  one  another  as  to  produce  almost 
the  effect  of  discord.  It  is  like  the  tremen- 
dous blare  of  a  church  organ  when  all  the 
stops  are  out  and  all  the  banks  locked  to- 
gether and  every  great  sub-bass  pipe  opened 
wide.  All  these  tones  of  Nature's  organ 
are  in  perfect  harmony,  but  the  blending  of 
their  highest  volumes  almost  confuses  and 
bewilders  the  ear. 

Sit  here  on  this  bench  of  rock  and  listen 
to  the  multitudinous  voices  of  the  mountain 
brook,  as  it  thunders  from  shelf  to  shelf. 
At  times  we  seem  to  hear  the  shouting  of  a 
great  company  of  men — deep,  strong  voices, 
like  those  of  a  crowd  cheering  or  maddened 
with  anger.  Then  we  hear  children  calling 
to  one  another,  and  almost  expect  to  see  a 
89 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

merry  group  of  them  climbing  the  ravine. 
Again,  there  will  be  a  sound  of  wailing  and 
sobbing  in  the  rush  of  the  stream.  But 
above  all  and  through  all  there  comes  to  our 
ears  the  sound  as  of  a  lofty,  triumphant 
chant,  a  Gloria  in  Excelsis  pealing  through 
cathedral  windows. 

This  is  the  most  impressive  music  of 
God's  outer  temple — this  grand  unison  of 
the  great  choir  and  the  great  organ.  As 
often  as  I  hear  it  I  feel  anew  that  Nature 
is  no  less  worshipful  than  man;  that  there 
is  a  strong  religious  element  in  the  world 
of  material  things,  not  dependent  upon 
man's  perception  and  interpretation,  but 
vital,  independent,  and  self-sustaining.  Na- 
ture is  not  only  the  temple  of  the  divine, 
but  her  own  conscious  spirit  worships 
therein,  and  joins  with  the  spirit  of  man  in 
uplifting  the  voice  of  praise  and  thanks- 
giving to  the  Father  of  all. 


90 


A  CUP  IN  THE  HILLS 

"THE  Giant's  Cup"  is  a  crystal  pond 
about  half-way  up  the  side  of  Saltash  Moun- 
tain. The  mountain  is  the  giant,  and  he 
carries  his  cup  at  his  belt,  with  a  marvelous 
dexterity  in  keeping  it  always  full  and  never 
spilling  it  over.  There  are  about  five  acres 
of  water  in  the  pond  (country  people  always 
measure  water  as  well  as  land  by  the  acre), 
and  those  five  liquid  acres  are  "planted," 
not  with  oats  or  corn  or  barley,  but  with 
trout — red-spotted,  lusty,  toothsome  brook 
trout,  grown  to  enormous  size  in  the  clear, 
pure,  wholesome  waters  of  the  "Cup," 
where  an  abundance  of  food  comes  to  them 
from  the  "leaching  out"  of  the  shores  and 
the  falling  to  pieces  in  the  water  of  decayed 
and  wormy  logs.  Ten  years  ago  there  was 
not  a  trout  in  the  Giant's  Cup,  but  some 
enterprising  fishermen  in  a  neighboring  vil- 
lage leased  the  water  and  stocked  it  with 
fingerlings;  and  since  then  its  fame  as  a 
fishing  ground  has  spread  far  and  wide,  and 

91 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

greatly  esteemed  is  the  privilege  of  dropping 
line  and  hook  in  its  crystal  depths  for  a  day. 

I  shall  never  forget  a  certain  June  day 
spent  on  the  pond  with  one  of  the  village 
fishermen  and  his  thirteen-year-old  boy. 
The  boy  was  always  taken  along  by  his 
father  as  a  "mascot,"  and  so  thoroughly 
established  was  the  old  fisherman's  faith 
in  what  he  called  "boy  luck,"  that  he  told 
me  he  would  "almost  as  soon  think  of  going 
without  bait  as  without  Ned." 

We  started  before  daylight  from  the  vil- 
lage as,  according  to  time-honored  tradition, 
one  "must  get  to  fishing  at  sunrise  if  you 
are  going  to  catch  them  when  they  are  bit- 
ing." This  same  strenuous  philosophy 
seems  to  extend  to  all  enterprises  in  the 
country,  and  is,  I  doubt  not,  one  of  the 
thorns  of  the  "terrible  conscience  for  labor," 
which  a  writer  ascribes  to  New  Englanders. 
That  there  is  any  intrinsic  value  in  the  day- 
break philosophy  I  am  inclined  to  doubt, 
however ;  for,  according  to  my  observation, 
there  is  more  nerve-energy  lost  between  the 
first  peep  of  day  and  a  reasonable  breakfast 
hour  than  is  ever  regained  in  practical  re- 
sults. 

92 


A  Cup  in  the  Hills 

We  had  breakfast  by  candle-light,  never- 
theless, and  rattled  out  of  the  village  in  my 
host's  Concord  buggy  at  four  o'clock  A.  M. 
by  my  watch.  A  seven-mile  climb  up  the 
mountain  road,  during  which  I  alternately 
admired  and  pitied  the  muscular  power  and 
endurance  of  our  horse,  brought  us  to  the 
Giant's  Cup ;  and  at  half-past  five  we  pushed 
the  old  flat-bottomed  boat  out  from  shore 
and  dropped  our  lines  into  the  pond. 

The  sun  was  just  coming  up  over  the 
glistening  woods,  and  the  birds  were  in  full 
song.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  never 
heard  such  a  heavenly  chorus  of  praise 
going  up  to  God.  My  rod  lay  across  my 
lap,  my  forefinger  "stopping"  the  line  just 
above  the  reel,  mechanically  awaiting  the 
tremor  which  announces  that  a  fish  is  nos- 
ing and  nibbling  the  bait,  preparatory  to 
the  twanging  bite  that  sets  every  angler's 
nerves  a-tingle.  But  for  a  time  I  forgot  that 
I  was  fishing.  My  heart  and  soul  were  not 
in  it,  but  caught  up  with  the  glorious  morn- 
ing hymn  of  the  birds.  On  one  side  of  the 
pond  a  hermit  thrush  was  pouring  out  that 
inexpressible  song  whose  notes  can  be  lik- 
ened only  to  a  combination  of  the  violin  and 

93 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

flute  tones — the  purity  and  sweetness  of  the 
one  united  with  the  smoothness  and  richness 
of  the  other.  Nearer  at  hand  a  brown 
thrush  was  lifting  up  his  less  ethereal  but 
more  vivacious  and  buoyant  song,  and  close 
beside  him,  like  a  kind  of  choir-master,  a 
chewink  beat  time  for  all  the  singers  with 
his  clear,  precise  double  note.  A  couple  of 
vireos  back  in  the  woods  were  bidding  each 
other  a  loving  good  morning;  a  robin  (for 
there  is  plenty  of  robins  in  the  New  Eng- 
land backwoods)  was  trilling  his  idyllic 
matins  from  a  birch  top;  and  a  song  spar- 
row, like  a  piccolo  player,  pierced  the  chorus 
through  and  through  with  his  fine,  shrill 
cadenzas.  Then  there  were  the  innumer- 
able songsters  in  the  background,  whose 
notes  could  not  be  distinguished  in  the  rich 
medley — a  whole  company  of  trained  and 
sympathetic  accompanists,  like  the  finest 
orchestra  in  the  world.  Ah !  it  was  enough 
to  make  one  forget  even  the  rare  delights 
of  trout-fishing  in  a  mountain  pond  girdled 
with  primeval  woods.  It  was  something 
worth  getting  up  at  three  o'clock  and  rid- 
ing seven  miles  through  the  damp  woods  to 
hear.  To  me  it  was  ample  compensation 
94 


A  Cup  in  the  Hills 

for  the  fact  that  not  a  trout  nibbled  our  bait 
until  broad  nine  o'clock  in  the  forenoon. 

Now  be  it  understood  that  trout  fishing 
in  a  pond  is  by  no  means  the  same  thing 
as  trout  fishing  in  running  water.  A  trout 
conforms  to  his  surroundings  in  many  re- 
spects— coloring,  for  instance,  and  motion. 
In  dark  colored  water  a  trout  is  dark 
skinned.  In  clear  water  he  is  paler,  more 
golden  in  hue.  In  quick  water  a  trout  is 
quick  of  movement,  impulsive,  darting.  In 
continuously  still  water  he  grows  sluggish, 
leisurely,  deliberative.  Whereas  a  brook 
trout  in  his  native  element  is  the  quickest 
of  all  fish  to  seize  a  bait,  if  he  is  going  to 
bite  at  all,  in  still  water  he  becomes  the  most 
tardy  and  conservative  of  the  finny  tribe. 
My  host  told  me  that  he  had  sometimes  sat 
from  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  five 
o'clock  in  the  evening  in  his  boat  on  the 
pond,  and  then  got  his  first  bite,  after  which 
he  landed  eight  big  trout  in  succession.  So 
the  reader  will  see  that  for  a  test  of  the 
fisherman's  proverbial  patience  nothing 
quite  equals  pond  fishing  for  brook  trout. 

We  waited,  as  I  said,  until  nine  o'clock 
for  our  first  bite ;  and  then  the  boy,  the  mas- 

.95 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

cot,  suddenly  caught  up  his  rod,  which  had 
been  resting  upon  the  side  of  the  boat,  and 
"snubbed,"  as  the  local  fishermen  say,  with 
all  his  might.  Instantly  the  slender  tip  of 
the  rod  bent  in  crescent  shape,  and  the  line 
began  traveling  back  and  forth  through  the 
water  with  that  tremulous,  erratic  motion 
which  proclaims  to  the  experienced  fisher- 
man that  a  big  fellow  has  the  hook  firmly 
bedded  in  his  mouth. 

"Pa!"  cried  the  boy.  It  was  the  only 
word  spoken.  The  veteran  calmly  drew  in 
his  line  and  laid  his  rod  across  the  thwarts. 
Then  he  picked  up  the  landing-net  and  stood 
waiting  to  see  on  which  side  the  struggling 
trout  would  consent  to  be  brought  up  to 
the  boat.  The  boy  was  a  cool-headed  little 
chap,  and  he  played  his  fish  well.  Several 
times  he  checked  a  rush  for  an  adjacent 
snag,  and  once  his  reel  sang  out  merrily, 
as  he  gave  the  big  trout  line  enough  for  a 
slanting  plunge  straight  down  to  the  bot- 
tom. Then,  inch  by  inch,  he  coaxed  his  fish 
nearer  the  boat,  tiring  him  out  meanwhile, 
until  we  could  all  see  the  broad-backed  cap- 
tive sailing  near  the  surface,  and  now  and 
then  making  a  feeble  effort  to  dive  under 
96 


A  Cup  in  the  Hills 

the  boat.  Suddenly  the  old  fisherman 
dipped  the  landing-net,  pushed  it  under  the 
trout,  and  brought  him  up  flopping  in  the 
meshes.  A  moment  later  he  lay  shining 
at  our  feet — a  three-pounder  and  a  "jim- 
dandy,"  as  the  veteran  said.  Whereat  the 
boy's  face  shone  like  a  polished  apple,  and 
he  went  to  pinning  a  fresh  worm  on  his 
hook. 

So  the  sweet,  still  summer  day  slipped 
by — and  we  got  that  one  big  trout  only! 
But  how  richly  were  we  all  satisfied! — the 
boy  because  he  had  caught  a  "jim-dandy;" 
the  veteran  because  his  faith  in  boy-luck 
had  been  vindicated,  and  by  his  own  boy, 
too;  and  I  because  I  had  been  all  day  close 
to  the  heart  of  nature,  had  heard  the  birds 
sing,  had  watched  the  sun  building  his 
grand  arch  over  the  wilderness  undimmed 
by  smoke,  had  drunk  in  peace  to  my  soul 
and  health  to  my  body,  and  basked  in  the 
stillness  where  God  delights  to  speak. 

We  rattled  homeward  at  a  lively  pace 
down  the  mountain  road,  the  sure-footed 
horse  having  little  to  do  but  guide  the  buggy 
and  keep  the  jerking  shafts  from  picking 
him  up  bodily.  The  boy  nestled  between 

7  97 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

us  on  the  wagon  seat,  with  a  far-away  look 
in  his  eyes,  which  sprang,  no  doubt,  from 
wondering  what  his  mother  would  have  for 
supper.  Albeit  we  had  enjoyed  an  excellent 
lunch  on  the  "Cup,"  my  own  appetite  made 
me  a  sympathetic  interpreter  of  the  lad's 
silence.  The  veteran  smoked  his  pipe,  drove 
with  a  sure  hand,  and  talked  exhaustively 
and  discerningly  of  fishing. 

"But  I  do  n't  know  what  I  shall  do  when 
my  boy  wears  out,"  he  declared  at  last,  pa- 
thetically. "He 's  coming  up  pretty  fast, 
and  in  four  or  five  years  won't  be  worth  a 
shuck  to  fish — no  more  than  I  be." 

Whereupon  the  boy  grinned  and  thrust 
his  elbow  into  the  veteran's  ribs.  "O,  pa !" 
he  cried.  And  the  old  man  winked  at  me 
over  the  tattered  straw  hat  that  bobbed  be- 
tween us. 


IN  THE  HEART  OF  THE  PINES 

WHY  is  it  that  one  who  goes  to  the  woods 
in  summer  almost  invariably  seeks  out  the 
pines,  if  there  be  any  in  the  vicinity,  and 
enjoys  his  stroll  or  his  siesta  under  their 
shade,  rather  than  beneath  the  canopy  of 
the  deciduous  trees?  There  are  several  ex- 
cellent reasons  for  this  preference,  I  think. 
The  first  is,  that  the  pine  woods  are  un- 
doubtedly cooler  in  summer  than  other 
woods.  Their  shade  is  more  profound  and 
unbroken.  The  air  has  a  freer  circulation 
through  their  lofty  and  open  aisles.  Then, 
too,  the  pine  is  an  upland  tree,  growing  by 
preference  on  high  or  rising  ground  where 
there  is  naturally  more  air  stirring.  Inci- 
dental to  the  greater  coolness  and  better 
circulation  of  the  pine  woods  is  their  com- 
parative freedom  from  insect  pests.  This  is 
no  slight  advantage  from  the  rambler's 
standpoint.  Again,  there  is  that  delicious 
aromatic  fragrance  of  the  pines,  so  espe- 
cially noticeable  in  hot  weather,  when  the 

99 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

resinous  juices  of  the  tree  ooze  out  and 
trickle  down  the  bark  in  threads  as  pellucid 
as  amber — a  fragrance  not  only  grateful  to 
the  sense  and  full  of  pleasant  associations, 
but  wholesome  and  medicinal  in  the  highest 
degree.  Furthermore,  the  open  character 
of  the  ground  in  a  pine  woods  is  a  constant 
delight  to  the  rambler.  His  feet  tread  upon 
a  smooth,  springy  carpet  of  pine  needles, 
free  from  undergrowth,  and  his  eye  takes 
in  wide  perspectives  of  woodland  beauty, 
ranging  down  the  solemn  and  stately  aisles 
of  tree-trunks.  And  who  is  insensible  to 
the  charm  of  that  exquisite  seolian  music 
of  the  wind  in  the  pine-branches  ? — a  music 
unequaled  by  any  other  forest  sound,  save, 
perhaps,  the  noble  hymn  of  falling  water. 
Last,  but  not  least,  the  pine  groves  are  the 
favorite  haunts  of  our  woodland  songsters 
during  the  summer,  and  there  we  may  con- 
fidently expect  to  see  and  hear  most  of  the 
rarer  varieties  of  wild  birds  in  any  vicinity 
during  a  day  of  quiet  observation. 

On  many  accounts,  then,  the  pines  are 
the  ideal  summer  woods;  and  the  writer 
has  been  well  pleased  to  observe  that,  in 
many  localities,  especially  in  New  Eng- 


In  the  Heart  of  the  Pines 

land,  these  trees  are  being  spared  when  all 
the  other  trees  about  them  are  relentlessly 
laid  low.  In  the  suburbs  about  Boston, 
for  instance,  where  the  nature  of  the  soil 
is  favorable  to  pines,  you  will  see  scat- 
tered groves  of  these  dark-foliaged  trees 
crowning  the  hill-tops,  rising  majestically 
above  the  second-growth  of  oak  and  birch 
clearings,  and  even  shadowing  the  roofs 
of  handsome  out-of-town  residences.  The 
pines  have  been  spared — and  always  will 
be  spared  in  the  residential  sections,  I 
hope — because  of  their  healthfulness  and 
beauty,  the  charm  of  their  wind-music,  and 
the  coolness  which  their  shade  affords  dur- 
ing the  summer  months. 

But  to  enjoy  a  pine  woods  fully  you 
must  get  away  from  the  suburban  sec- 
tions, from  the  vicinity  of  cities,  to  the 
real  country,  where  you  can  find  woods 
that  lie  deep  and  extensive — forests  rather 
than  groves.  You  must  get  into  the  heart 
of  the  aromatic  pine  wilderness,  and  spend 
a  day  with  its  ancient  and  rightful  propri- 
etors— the  birds  and  squirrels.  The  best 
point  of  observation  will  be  a  knoll  or  bank, 
where  you  can  recline  at  ease,  somewhat 
101 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

above  the  general  level,  with  the  branches 
of  the  trees  below  you  nearly  on  the  same 
plane  with  your  eyes. 

One  of  the  first  things  you  will  notice, 
perhaps,  is  the  summer  nest  of  the  red 
squirrel — a  large,  loosely  built  structure  of 
twigs  and  leaves,  among  the  uppermost 
branches  of  one  of  our  pines.  It  is  nearly 
as  large  as  a  half-bushel  basket,  and  there 
is  no  attempt  whatever  at  concealment. 
In  this  matter  of  residence  our  little  friend 
chickaree  is  surely  an  aristocrat,  for  he  has 
both  his  summer  house  and  his  winter 
house.  This  shapeless,  loosely  woven  struc- 
ture of  twigs  and  leaves  is  his  summer 
home — cool  and  ample;  and  here  he  raises 
his  children  and  cares  for  them  until  they 
are  old  enough  to  scamper  and  forage  for 
themselves.  Then,  in  the  fall,  the  whole 
family  retires  to  its  snugger  winter  resi- 
dence, a  hollow  tree,  where  the  winter's 
provender  is  laid  by  in  a  safe  and  conven- 
ient storehouse.  At  this  season  of  the  year 
the  young  are  probably  hidden  away  in  the 
depths  of  that  wic£er-work  nest  in  the  pine- 
top.  Chickaree  himself  you  will  no  doubt 
see  and  hear,  as  he  sits  on  a  neighboring 
102 


In  the  Heart  of  the  Pines 

limb  scolding  you  and  flirting  his  tail  as  he 
scolds.  But  he  does  not  seem  very  much 
alarmed,  for  it  is  rarely  indeed  that  any 
human  being  disturbs  the  red  squirrel's 
summer  residence.  Most  of  the  boys  sup- 
pose them  to  be  deserted  crows'  nests — at 
least  that  was  the  theory  in  my  boyhood 
days — and  no  one  but  a  boy  would  care  to 
investigate  the  odd  clump  in  the  pine-top. 
Here  comes  a  little  bird  that  is  a  great 
lover  of  the  pine  woods — one  of  our  sweet- 
est and  shyest  woodland  singers.  You  al- 
most need  a  glass  to  see  him,  he  is  so  small 
and  so  incessantly  active ;  but  once  get  your 
eye  on  him,  and  you  will  not  forget  him, 
with  his  trim  shape  and  pretty  marking. 
This  is  the  black-throated  green  warbler 
(why  can't  the  ornithologists  give  him,  and 
some  others  of  his  family,  a  less  involved 
and  less  complicated  name?),  and  if  you  will 
keep  perfectly  quiet  for  a  few  minutes  you 
will  probably  hear  his  sweet,  thin,  and,  it 
must  be  confessed,  rather  vague  and  char- 
acterless song.  The  shy,  restless,  and  ever- 
vanishing  little  fellow  seems  like  some  spirit 
of  the  woods  wandering  through  the 
branches  of  the  dark  old  pines. 
103 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

Strange  as  it  may  seem  to  those  of  us 
who  have  learned  to  think  of  it  as  a 
domesticated,  house-loving  bird,  the  phcebe 
is  also  a  familiar  inhabitant  of  the  deep 
pine  woods.  The  phoebe  that  builds  in 
outhouses  and  under  bridges  is  a  corrupted 
member  of  the  family,  who,  like  the  chim- 
ney-swift, has  been  enticed  from  the  ways 
of  its  kind  by  the  seductions  of  civilization. 
The  original  phoebe  is  a  dweller  in  the 
deepest  woods,  and  there  you  may  still  hear 
his  sweet,  plaintive  song  amid  the  sound  of 
falling  water  and  the  soughing  of  pines. 
There  is  no  difference  in  the  physical  char- 
acteristics of  the  two  birds.  The  only  dif- 
ference is  a  change  of  habitat  on  the  part  of 
the  semi-domesticated  bird. 

That  ringing,  bell-like  song,  which  al- 
ways seems  to  come  from  a  distance,  no 
matter  how  near  the  singer  may  be,  is  the 
song  of  the  veery.  How  appropriate  to 
the  "dim  religious  light"  in  these  solemn 
aisles  of  God's  woodland  temple !  Nearer 
at  hand,  a  Maryland  yellow-throat  is  cry- 
ing, "Trickery,  trickery,  trickery!"  perhaps 
over  some  cuckoo's  sly  deposit  of  a  found- 
104 


In  the  Heart  of  the  Pines 

ling  egg  in  the  yellow-throat's  nest  during 
the  latter's  temporary  absence. 

The  black-capped  titmouse  is  still  lisping 
among  the  pines — lisping  much  the  same 
modest  little  song  that  you  might  have 
heard  there  in  January  and  February,  a 
monotonous,  but  sweet,  "day-day-day,"  with 
an  occasional  vivacious  variation,  as  if  sud- 
denly waking  from  a  revery  or  breaking 
into  bird-laughter  —  "chick-a-dee-dee-dee- 
dee."  It  is  pleasant  to  find  one  of  our  na- 
tive songsters  which  not  only  stays  with  us 
all  the  year  round,  but  sings  almost  the 
same  song  summer  and  winter.  I,  for  one, 
would  rather  have  such  modest  optimism 
all  the  time,  in  all  weathers  and  through  all 
vicissitudes,  than  ecstatic  rapture  only  when 
the  sun  shines  and  the  winds  are  soft  and 
balmy.  Chickadee  is  the  consistent  Chris- 
tian among  birds ;  and  if  there  is  any  bird- 
hereafter,  he  will  surely  have  his  reward. 

Do  you  hear  that  far-off,  throbbing, 
drumming  sound,  that  begins  with  three 
or  four  slow,  heavy  beats,  and  then  grad- 
ually increases  in  rapidity,  until  its  stac- 
cato almost  confuses  the  ear?  That  is  the 

I05 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

drumming  of  the  ruffed  grouse,  the  prince 
of  the  pine  woods.  He  produces  the  sound 
by  beating  his  wings  against  his  inflated 
breast,  and  it  is  at  once  a  lover's  summons 
and  a  challenge — a  summons  to  the  hen 
grouse,  and  a  challenge  to  any  rival  cock 
who  may  be  in  the  vicinity.  It  is  one  of 
the  mysterious  sounds  of  the  woods,  and 
you  may  hear  it  from  April  until  mid- 
August,  which  represents  the  duration  of 
the  breeding  season.  Was  it  not  Thoreau 
who  said  that  no  country  would  seem  natu- 
ral to  him  without  the  drumming  of  the 
ruffed  grouse  ? 

Ah!  the  spell  of  the  deep  pine  woods — 
those  etherealized  bird  songs,  never  so  sweet 
and  spiritual,  it  would  seem,  elsewhere; 
the  inexpressible,  soft,  moving  music  of  the 
pine-needles  themselves  in  the  passing 
breeze;  the  silence  that  sometimes  falls,  so 
deep  and  sacred  and  solemn ;  the  holy  gloom 
like  that  of  some  vast  cathedral ;  the  resin- 
ous fragrance  rich  as  incense;  the  smooth, 
odorous  couch  and  carpet  of  brown  needles ; 
the  far-reaching  vistas  down  a  hundred 
aisles  of  stately  columns!  Beautiful  and 
holy  are  the  pine  woods  in  summer — verily 
106 


In  the  Heart  of  the  Pines 

a  temple  fit  for  the  presence  of  God  and  for 
the  soul's  communion  with  him.  Let  the 
nature-lover  tread  these  silent  aisles  with 
reverence,  believing  that  if  his  heart  and 
soul  are  open  to  the  voices  of  the  wilder- 
ness, they  shall  bring  him  some  whisper  of 
that  Beneficent  Presence  who  is  over  all  and 
in  all  and  throughout  all  his  marvelous  cre- 
ation. 


107 


MIDSUMMER  NIGHT  SOUNDS 

WHO  that  loves  nature  does  not  find  joy 
in  her  amazing  vitality  and  fecundity,  her 
absolute  unconquerableness  ?  How  mysteri- 
ously and  potently  she  survives,  in  spite  of 
the  destructive  encroachments  of  man! 
How  she  springs  up  about  his  very  heels  the 
moment  he  turns  from  trampling  on  her, 
and  returns  good  for  evil  by  covering  his 
unsightly  pathway  with  the  mantle  of  her 
ancient  beauty!  She  follows  him  back  to 
his  city  walls  with  her  luxuriant  verdure, 
her  bird-songs,  her  inextinguishable  wild 
life  of  every  kind.  Such  tenacity  of  exist- 
ence! Such  cheerful,  hopeful,  undismayed 
clinging  to  the  primal  gift  of  God !  It  gives 
one  fresh  courage  for  all  good  things,  to  see 
how  nature  triumphs  over  every  abuse. 

In  midsummer,  especially,  the  strong  vi- 
tality and  enormous  fecundity  of  wild  life 
reveal  themselves  on  every  hand.  How  rank 
the  vegetation,  how  abundant  the  evidences 
of  animal  and  insect  life  everywhere!  You 
108 


Midsummer  Night  Sounds 

may  live  within  sound  of  the  bells  of  a  great 
city,  and  yet  find  yourself  fairly  submerged 
in  the  midsummer  flood-tide  of  nature. 
Brambles  and  vines  and  weeds  and  wild 
growths  of  every  kind  will  riot  over  your 
premises  unless  you  fight  them  constantly; 
four-footed  creatures  will  steal  your  garden 
vegetables  and  your  chickens;  and  real 
country  birds  will  wake  you  in  the  morn- 
ing with  as  loud  and  glad  a  chorus  as  you 
can  hear  at  the  end  of  a  mountain  road. 
I  take  heart  of  hope  in  all  this,  for  it  as- 
sures me  that,  if  I  should  live  to  be  a  hun- 
dred, I  shall  not  see  nature  stamped  out, 
even  within  the  bounds  of  our  most  aggress- 
ive civilization.  Massachusetts,  the  statis- 
ticians tell  us,  is  the  most  densely  populated 
State  of  the  Union,  with  the  single  excep- 
tion of  her  little  New  England  sister,  Rhode 
Island.  And  yet,  in  the  most  populous  cor- 
ner of  Massachusetts,  within  ten  miles  of 
the  metropolis  of  Boston,  there  is  an  annual 
revival  of  nature  that  is  positively  amazing. 
I  could  take  the  reader  to  at  least  a  dozen 
spots,  from  all  of  which  the  city  of  Boston 
is  plainly  visible,  where,  if  you  do  not  take 
advantage  of  the  highest  view-point,  you 
109 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

might  easily  be  persuaded  that  you  were  in 
one  of  the  wildest  corners  of  the  Maine 
woods.  Tangles  without  end,  swamps, 
beetling  rocks,  groves  of  stately  pines,  rare 
birds,  unpicked  berries,  solemn  silence,  not 
a  roof  anywhere  to  be  seen — these  are  the 
abundant  evidences  of  how  nature  can  hold 
her  own  in  the  vicinity  of  not  less  than  a 
million  human  beings. 

But,  best  of  all,  take  some  still,  hot  sum- 
mer night,  and  listen  for  the  voices  that 
prove  the  unconquerableness  of  nature,  even 
on  the  outskirts  of  a  great  city.  How 
many  mysterious  sounds  float  up  to  your 
open  window — sounds  made  by  wild  crea- 
tures whose  names  you  do  not  know,  and 
whose  presence  you  never  suspected ! 

Have  you  never  been  startled,  on  a  hot, 
breathless  July  or  August  night,  by  a  scream 
so  loud  and  harsh  and  angry  in  tone  that 
your  fancy  flew  at  once  to  the  panther 
stories  that  delighted  your  youth,  and  you 
were  ready  to  believe  that  there  was  actu- 
ally a  prowling  cougar  in  the  swamp  be- 
yond the  road?  I  have  heard  this  wilder- 
ness-cry in  the  same  moment  with  a  Boston 
fire-alarm,  and  strangely  mingling  with  it. 
no 


Midsummer  Night  Sounds 

What  was  it — that  sound  so  like  the  angry, 
petulant  scream  of  a  heat-vexed,  half-sick 
child?  It  was  only  a  tree-toad's  night  cry, 
rough,  harsh,  and  penetrating.  You  will 
seldom  hear  the  sound  except  on  a  hot  sum- 
mer night;  but  once  heard,  you  can  never 
forget  it.  I  know  of  nothing  quite  so  harsh 
and  disagreeable  among  all  the  voices  of  the 
wild  creatures.  It  makes  a  heavy,  sultry 
summer  night  seem  all  the  more  unendur- 
able. 

Perhaps  there  comes  up  to  your  window, 
on  some  warm  midsummer  night,  a  thin, 
quavering,  plaintive,  long-drawn  whimper. 
"What  is  that?"  you  ask.  That  is  the  cry 
of  the  predatory  skunk.  You  will  hear  it 
in  any  locality  where  there  is  a  hen-roost. 
That  short-legged  night-thief  is  on  his  cus- 
tomary rounds,  and  the  chances  are  that  he 
will  pounce  upon  somebody's  pet  chicken 
before  morning.  Why  he  should  announce 
his  coming  by  that  tremulous  cry  I  do  not 
know ;  but  it  is  certainly  a  sweet  and  melan- 
choly night-sound.  There  is  something  al- 
most winningly  pathetic  about  it. 

The  raccoon  has  a  similar  night-cry,  only 
louder  and  not  quite  so  tremulous.  You 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

may  hear  it  often  when  the  corn  is  milky 
in  the  ear,  and  the  "coons"  steal  out  to 
gnaw  and  trample  down  the  cornstalks,  that 
they  may  get  at  the  sweet  young  kernels  in 
the  husk.  The  coon-hunt  by  moonlight, 
with  a  good  dog  or  two,  is  to  the  Northern 
boy  what  the  'possum-hunt  of  song  and 
story  is  to  his  cousin  of  the  South.  How 
often  have  I  lain,  with  my  companions, 
in  the  warm  sand  bordering  the  cornfield, 
waiting  with  dogs  in  leash  until  we  heard 
the  rustling  of  coons  in  the  corn,  and  that 
clear,  whistling  cry  that  floats  so  far  over 
silent  field  and  woodland.  Then  a  wild  rush 
up  the  edge  of  the  corn,  a  crashing  and 
clamor  of  dogs  among  the  stalks,  and  in  a 
few  minutes  we  have  the  coons  up  a  tree, 
where  we  can  shoot  them  at  our  leisure. 

Among  the  most  mysterious  sounds  of 
a  summer  night  is  the  "booming"  of  the 
night  hawk.  From  far  up  in  the  sky  a  sud- 
den hollow,  rushing  sound  is  heard,  continu- 
ing, perhaps,  for  a  couple  of  seconds,  and 
then  ceasing  as  abruptly  as  it  began.  This 
sound  is  produced  by  the  night  hawk  diving 
from  his  lofty  poise  among  the  clouds.  So 
like  an  arrow  does  he  drop,  for  hundreds  of 


Midsummer  Night  Sounds 

feet,  that  the  air  rushing  beneath  his  hol- 
lowed wings  makes  a  long,  booming  sound 
like  the  echo  of  a  cannon's  report  among 
the  hills.  Again  and  again  have  I  heard 
the  night  hawks  diving  in  the  dusk  over  the 
roofs  and  steeples  of  Boston,  while  I  have 
been  sitting  at  my  open  window  of  a  sum- 
mer evening.  This  diving  and  mounting 
again,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  is  a  gyration 
of  pure  physical  pleasure,  a  part  of  the  gen- 
eral playfulness  of  nature's  wild  creatures. 
The  booming  is  a  pleasant  sound  echoing 
through  the  hushed  air  of  summer  twilight ; 
and  no  doubt  many  who  have  never  under- 
stood its  cause  have  listened  to  it  with  de- 
light. 

The  bittern's  ah-unk,  ah-unk,  is  still  an- 
other mysterious  and  agreeable  sound  of 
midsummer  evening.  It  is  like  the  sound 
made  by  the  handle  of  an  old-fashioned 
wooden  pump,  or  the  blows  of  an  ax  driv- 
ing a  stake  in  the  swamp — hence  the  com- 
mon name  of  the  bird,  "stake-driver." 
There  are  hundreds  of  bitterns  in  the 
swamps  about  Canton  and  Sudbury,  just 
out  of  Boston.  They  are  large  birds,  with 
an  immense  spread  of  wing,  and  fairly 

8  113 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

startle  you  when  they  flop  up,  clumsily,  just 
ahead  of  you,  as  you  are  skirting  the 
marshes. 

Both  the  woodcock  and  the  English  snipe, 
or  Wilson's  snipe,  have  a  delicate,  mysteri- 
ous, and  beautiful  song  with  which  they 
accompany  their  evening  flights  in  spring 
and  summer.  You  may  hear  it  often  above 
the  marshes  when  you  can  not  see  the  birds 
aloft  in  the  twilight.  It  is  a  tremulous  song, 
on  a  sliding  scale  from  high  to  low,  very 
plaintive,  tender,  and  sweet.  Indeed,  most 
of  these  night  songs  and  sounds  have  a 
plaintive  quality  and  are  pitched  in  a  minor 
key — very  befitting  the  hour  and  the  associ- 
ations, it  would  seem.  Many  of  them  are 
wholly  mysterious,  even  to  those  who  have 
heard  them  season  after  season.  But  for 
that  very  reason,  perhaps,  they  are  all  the 
more  affecting  and  charming.  For  I  am 
thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  those  who 
think  that  too  much  exact  knowledge  takes 
something  of  the  romance  and  poetry  out 
of  our  acquaintance  with  nature.  There 
must  be  a  certain  indefiniteness,  a  certain 
hazy  quality,  in  our  knowledge  of  the  outer 
world — we  must  not,  in  a  word,  know  na- 
114 


Midsummer  Night  Sounds 

ture  too  well — or  we  shall  miss  that  elusive 
charm  which  pervades  the  poetry  of  Words- 
worth, for  instance.  I  am  not  sure  but  that 
we  should  be  more  appreciative  nature- 
lovers  if  we  did  not  feel  obliged  to  identify 
and  mentally  catalogue  every  creature  and 
plant  we  see  and  every  song  or  cry  we  hear. 
However,  modern  nature-study  is  nothing 
if  not  exact,  and  if  any  old-fashioned  rhap- 
sodist  makes  a  mistake  of  fact,  he  may  be 
pretty  sure  of  getting  snapped  up  before 
his  words  are  cold. 

There  are  other  night  sounds,  peculiarly 
characteristic  of  summer,  which  I  should 
like  to  describe,  if  I  could  ramble  on  thus 
indefinitely — the  loon's  wild  laughter,  for 
instance,  the  fox's  sharp  bark,  easily  dis- 
tinguishable from  the  shrillest  yelp  of  a  dog, 
the  many  odd  sounds  made  by  frogs  on  a 
summer  night,  and  the  varied  hooting  of  the 
owls.  But  my  disconnected  chapter  is  al- 
ready too  long,  and  I  must  wait  for  another 
occasion  to  renew  the  subject. 


COUNTRY  ROADS  IN  AUGUST 


a  country  road,  because  it  is  free 
as  the  air,  or  as  navigable  waters,  to  all  of 
us.  You  may  wander  along  it  all  day,  with 
no  danger  of  being  confronted  by  a  tres- 
pass sign,  or  ordered  out  of  the  grass  by 
an  irate  farmer.  It  is  everybody's  manor, 
everybody's  shrubbery  and  aviary  —  better 
than  the  fields,  too,  for  plants  and  birds, 
because  free  to  them  in  the  same  sense  that 
it  is  free  to  the  rambler  and  the  gipsy.  The 
wild  growths  of  the  fields  creep  under  the 
fences  into  the  country  roads  for  protection 
from  the  plow,  the  scythe,  and  the  hoe. 
There  they  are  safe,  like  helpless  women 
and  children  who  have  fled  from  massacre 
to  the  walls  of  a  bristling  town. 

In  August  especially  the  luxuriance  and 
tangled  beauty  of  the  country  road  afford 
a  striking  and  grateful  contrast  to  the 
shorn  desolation  or  nibbled  barrenness  of 
the  meadows  and  pastures  on  either  side. 
All  the  native  plants,  sheltered  and  un- 
116 


Country  Roads  in  August 

molested,  crowd  together  in  rustling  masses 
between  the  roadway  and  the  fence.  Rank 
and  tufted,  they  toss  their  plumed  heads  in 
the  breeze,  grateful  that  they  have  been 
spared  to  ripen  their  fruits  and  mature  their 
seeds.  Even  the  fences  themselves  are  over- 
run with  vines,  upon  which  the  fruits  or 
berries  already  hang  in  ripening  clusters. 
Yes,  everybody's  farm  is  dear  to  nature; 
and  there  she  gathers,  every  summer,  her 
broods  of  vagabond  children,  marching 
them  in  long  lines  of  beauty  up  hill  and 
down  dale,  across  counties,  States,  and  con- 
tinents. 

In  this  procession,  or  rather  by  its  side, 
I  also  love  to  march  during  the  warm,  redo- 
lent August  days,  when  you  can  fairly  taste 
the  innocent  wild  wines  in  odors  of  ripen- 
ing berries,  and  feel  nature's  exultation  and 
delight  in  emanations  from  bourgeoning 
fruit  and  pod.  Verily,  I  believe  that  many 
of  our  most  beautiful  and  familiar  native 
growths  of  field  and  meadow  would  stand 
a  fair  chance  of  being  exterminated,  were 
it  not  for  the  refuge  they  find  in  the  coun- 
try road.  Golden-rod,  the  gentians,  elder- 
berries, tansy,  milkweed,  primroses,  cara- 
117 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

way — how  they  are  harried  out  by  the 
farmer  and  driven  to  cover,  as  it  were,  along 
the  sheltering  banks  of  the  roadside!  It 
pleases  me  to  see  how  well  they  are  en- 
abled to  hold  their  own  in  these  strong- 
holds of  the  nomads,  spite  of  scythe  and 
hoe  and  fire.  Something  must  be  left  for 
beauty's  sake,  O  ye  utilitarians!  Let  us 
not  sacrifice  all  to  the  prose  of  gain. 

A  charming  expedition  for  a  nature- 
lover  is  to  start  out  very  early  of  an  Au- 
gust morning,  before  the  dew  is  off  the 
grass  or  leaves,  and  strike  into  some  little- 
traveled  country  road  for  a  day  of  quiet 
exploration  and  nature  study.  Take  a  field- 
glass  for  the  birds,  and  a  small  haversack 
for  luncheon  and  unknown  botanical  speci- 
mens. Make  no  haste,  but  stop  to  rest  in 
the  grateful  shade  as  often  as  your  blood 
gets  heated  or  your  legs  weary. 

How  fresh  and  cool  and  fragrant  is  this 
country  air  in  the  early  morning,  while  still 
saturated  with  moisture  and  loaded  with  the 
earthy  and  vegetable  odors  which  it  has 
absorbed  during  the  night!  Whenever  I 
feel  that  I  am  growing  old,  I  bestir  myself 
early  of  a  summer  morning,  and  tramp  out 
118 


Country  Roads  in  August 

along  some  woods-edge,  where  the  dew  is 
glistening  on  the  leaves  and  the  brakes  hang 
heavy  and  damp  over  black  loam.  Then 
comes  up  that  magical,  entrancing  morning 
odor  of  the  woods  into  my  nostrils,  and, 
presto !  I  am  a  boy  again,  with  alder  pole  in 
hand,  starting  forth  to  fish  the  trout-brook 
in  yonder  hollow.  That  delicious  matutinal 
woods-odor  is  the  same  the  world  over ;  and 
you  may  sate  your  soul  and  sense  with  it, 
if  you  are  early  enough,  along  any  country 
road  in  August.  There  is  something  about 
it,  I  am  convinced — even  for  those  in  whom 
it  does  not  rouse  old  memories — that  is 
tonic,  rejuvenating,  freshening.  It  is  a  fluid 
elixir  of  life.  You  feel,  as  you  breathe  it, 
good  for  a  hundred-mile  tramp,  and  you 
vaguely  fear  lest  the  country  road  shall 
dwindle  into  a  squirrel  track  and  run  up  a 
tree  long  before  you  are  ready  to  turn 
around  and  come  back. 

Even  yet,  so  late  in  the  season  as  Au- 
gust, you  will  find  some  birds  singing  along 
the  country  road,  especially  in  the  early 
morning.  There  is  a  peculiar  charm  about 
looking  and  listening  for  August  birds — be- 
cause each  lingering  songster  counts  for  so 
119 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

much.  The  same  kind  of  charm  it  is  that 
one  finds  in  looking  for  flowers  under  the 
snow,  or  second-crop  raspberries  in  October. 
We  may  call  it  the  charm  of  the  unexpected. 

What  a  delight,  for  instance,  to  hear,  as 
I  have  heard,  the  silvery  cadenza  of  a  song 
sparrow  along  a  country  road,  late  in  Au- 
gust !  How  springlike  it  sounds !  How  it 
carries  you  back  to  the  morning  of  the  year ! 
And  then  the  matins  of  the  robin — that 
familiar  warble  that  you  hear  so  constantly 
in  the  spring — how  refreshing  to  listen  once 
more  to  the  cheery  strain,  just  before  robin 
redbreast  starts  on  his  Southern  pilgrimage ! 

You  will  find  several  of  the  denizens  of 
the  deep  woods  still  in  full  song — the 
thrushes,  brown  and  hermit,  the  chewink, 
the  Maryland  yellow-throat,  two  or  three 
of  the  vireos,  the  cuckoo,  and  the  yellow- 
hammer.  The  last  two  are  not  distinctly 
singers,  but  their  harsher  notes  are  so  as- 
sociated with  the  woods  and  upland  pas- 
tures that,  to  my  ear,  they  have  a  sweetness 
and  significance  not  surpassed  by  the  most 
perfect  bird-melody. 

But  the  characteristic  August  bird — the 


Country  Roads  in  August 

one  you  can  hardly  think  of  without  asso- 
ciating him  with  yellow  grainfields  and 
thistledown  and  katydids  and  locusts — is 
the  little  goldfinch,  or  "yellow-bird."  What 
flocks  of  them  you  will  startle  into  flight 
along  any  tangled  country  road  in  August ! 
Away  they  go,  billowing  above  the  fields, 
with  that  peculiar  undulatory  flight  of  theirs 
— brilliant  black  and  yellow  males,  and 
sober,  greenish-black  and  yellow  females — 
singing  as  they  rise  and  fall  on  the  air  with 
a  cheery  chirp  that  one  can  never  forget 
who  has  once  heard  it.  I  always  have  the 
"August  feeling"  when  I  hear  a  goldfinch — 
the  feeling  that  summer  is  almost  gone,  that 
autumn  is  at  the  gate,  with  its  harvest- 
crowned  days  and  golden,  moonlit  nights, 
and  winter  only  a  little  way  behind,  veiled 
in  whirling  snow  and  sealing  the  streams 
with  its  icy  scepter. 

As  the  goldfinch  is  the  characteristic  bird 
of  August,  so  the  golden-rod  is  the  charac- 
teristic flower.  And  how  the  roadsides 
gleam  with  its  barbaric  plumes!  There  is 
a  splendor,  an  Oriental  richness,  about  the 
golden-rod  that  is  equaled  by  no  other 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

flower.  It  reminds  one  of  the  fringes  and 
tassels  of  Eastern  hangings.  How  appro- 
priate its  color  for  the  days  of  blazing  suns 
and  ripening  harvests!  And  then  what  a 
fine  foil  we  have  for  the  yellows  of  golden- 
rod,  tansy,  and  primrose,  in  the  rich  purples 
of  the  gentians  and  ripened  elderberries,  the 
purplish-blue  of  the  wild  grapes,  and  the 
pinks  of  thistle  and  hardback ! 

Ah !  the  subtle  flavor  of  those  wild  grapes 
that  hide  in  the  shadow  of  matted  vines 
along  the  country  road!  At  home  they 
would  seem  sour  and  astringent,  no  doubt, 
but  how  they  pique  and  delight  the  palate 
of  the  thirsty  rambler  as  he  plucks  and  eats 
them  fresh  from  the  roadside  vine!  The 
bursting  elderberries,  too,  distill  what  genial 
juices,  what  wholesome  new  wines,  for  the 
roadside  pilgrim! 

Happy  is  he  who,  with  single  heart  and 
soul  at  peace  with  God  and  man,  can  spend 
a  whole  sunny  day  in  the  joy  of  rambling. 
How  much  to  delight  him,  how  much  to  in- 
struct him,  in  the  quiet,  suggestive  ways  of 
nature !  All  that  he  learns  that  day  will  be 
at  first  hand,  out  of  the  earliest  book  ever 


Country  Roads  in  August 

written,  and  all  that  he  feels  will  be  quick 
and  fresh  from  the  indwelling  heart  of  Di- 
vine Love.  Nature  is  a  book  that  all  of  us 
may  read,  or  at  least  dip  into,  with  infinite 
profit.  And  not  the  least  interesting  of  her 
pages,  I  think,  are  those  which  one  may  find 
scattered  along  the  country  roadsides  when 
the  chapter  of  summer  approaches  its  finis. 


123 


A  DOORSTEP  SINGER 

ALMOST  every  pleasant  summer  night,  as 
a  boy,  I  used  to  hear  the  mournful  but 
sweet  and  tender  songs  of  the  whip-poor- 
wills  from  the  wooded  slopes  around  my 
native  town.  I  learned  to  love  the  sound 
and  to  listen  for  it;  and  when  I  left  home, 
as  a  young  man,  and  went  to  the  city  to 
work,  one  of  the  things  I  missed  most  was 
the  plaintive  lullaby  of  these  singers  in  the 
night.  Even  now,  if  I  chance  to  hear  the 
note  of  the  whip-poor-will  in  an  alien  place, 
a  feeling  of  the  most  intense  longing  and 
homesickness  comes  over  me,  and  it  seems 
as  if  I  would  give  the  world  just  to  be  back 
in  my  boyhood's  attic  chamber,  watching 
the  moonlight  on  the  bare,  rough  walls,  and 
listening  to  that  voice  from  the  hemlock 
hill. 

But  it  was  not  always  at  a  distance  that 
I  heard  the  whip-poor-wills  in  my  boyhood 
days — or  nights,  rather.  There  used  to  be 
124 


A  Doorstep  Singer 

one  of  them,  at  least,  that  was  far  more 
neighborly.  He  would  come  and  sit  on  the 
stone  step  at  the  back  of  the  house,  and  sing 
there  pretty  much  all  night.  Occasionally, 
one  of  the  family  would  get  up  and  try  to 
drive  him  away,  but  in  a  few  minutes  he 
would  be  back  again,  "whipping"  as  loudly 
as  ever.  Mother  used  to  call  him  "our 
doorstep  singer."  It  was  rather  disturb- 
ing, at  first,  his  notes  were  so  loud  and  pene- 
trating; but  we  got  used  to  our  little  mu- 
sician after  a  while,  and  slept  through  his 
concerts  quite  unconcernedly.  Since  then 
I  have  heard  of  a  good  many  instances  of 
whip-poor-wills  coming  to  sing  on  the  door- 
steps of  farmhouses.  The  broad  stone  step 
so  often  found  before  the  doors  of  country 
houses  seems  to  be  a  favorite  concert-plat- 
form with  this  mysterious  bird.  And  how 
his  loud,  whiplike  note  does  ring  through 
the  house  on  a  summer  night,  when  he  sets 
up  his  song ! 

I  often  used  to  creep  to  the  window  in 
the  hallway  outside  my  chamber,  on  moon- 
light nights,  and  look  down  at  the  little 
singer  on  the  doorstep.  He  seemed  like  a 
mere  patch  of  shadow,  as  he  hugged  the 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

stone,  in  his  coat  of  fluffy  dull  black  and 
soiled  white.  He  did  not  stir  when  he  ut- 
tered his  long-drawn  note,  and  I  used  to 
wonder  how  he  could  make  so  much  noise 
with  so  little  apparent  effort.  The  song  was 
peculiar,  heard  so  near  at  hand.  There  were 
two  or  three  guttural  or  aspirant  notes  in 
it,  a  kind  of  gasping  or  gulping  sound,  en- 
tirely unnoticeable  when  the  bird  is  heard 
at  a  distance.  The  "whip"  and  "will"  were 
real  whip-strokes  of  sound,  with  a  lash  and 
snap  to  them  that  fairly  cut  the  air. 

Now  and  then,  in  a  spirit  of  boyish  mis- 
chief, I  would  throw  something  down  at  the 
bird  when  he  was  in  the  midst  of  his  song, 
and  it  was  astonishing  and  amusing  to  ob- 
serve how  suddenly  and  abruptly  he  would 
stop  and  would  dart  away  before  the  missile 
reached  the  stone  where  he  sat.  I  used  to 
hear  others  of  the  family  laughing  when, 
with  a  half-finished  "whip"  or  "whip-poo," 
the  ringing  song  would  stop,  like  a  violin 
note  when  the  string  breaks. 

I  must  confess  that  the  note  of  the  whip- 
poor-will  heard  close  at  hand  is  rather  harsh 
and  disagreeable.  It  is  much  more  romantic 
to  listen  to  the  song  of  this  bird  when  it 
126 


A  Doorstep  Singer 

comes  from  the  woods  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
away. 

Though  I  roamed  the  woods  a  good  deal 
as  a  lad,  and  whip-poor-wills  were  very 
plenty  in  our  vicinity,  I  never  discovered 
more  than  one  of  their  nests,  and,  doubtless, 
would  not  have  found  that,  if  the  mother 
bird  had  not  darted  away  from  under  my 
very  feet,  just  in  time  to  prevent  my  step- 
ping on  her.  The  nest  was  a  mere  hollow 
in  the  leaf-mold  of  a  beech  thicket  on  a 
hillside.  There  was  no  pretense  at  nest- 
building.  The  clouded,  faintly  blotched 
eggs,  two  in  number,  lay  on  the  bare  ground 
in  the  shallow  depression  made  by  the 
mother  bird.  I  did  not  touch  them,  but 
hastened  away,  lest  they  should  grow  cold 
before  the  mother  ventured  to  return. 

Once  I  found  a  dead  whip-poor-will  in 
the  woods — shot,  probably,  by  some  sports- 
man who  mistook  it  for  a  woodcock,  as  the 
flight  of  these  two  birds,  when  disturbed, 
is  very  similar.  I  was  glad  of  the  oppor- 
tunity to  examine  the  bird  minutely,  for  I 
had  never  seen  one  closer  than  our  doorstep 
singer.  The  whip-poor-will  is  one  of  the 
oddest  looking  of  birds — a  sort  of  ragged 
127 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

minstrel  of  the  bird-world,  mottled  all  over 
with  indistinct  neutral  colors,  reddish 
brown,  grayish  black,  and  dirty  white.  The 
most  distinct  feature  of  its  plumage  is  the 
white  collar  that  crosses  its  neck  in  front. 
The  mouth  is  surrounded  with  hairy  bris- 
tles, which  aid  the  bird  in  catching  and  re- 
taining its  insect  food.  The  eyes  are  very 
large  and  beautiful,  as  is  the  case  with  all 
nocturnal  birds.  The  claws  are  short  and 
"stubby,"  and  not  fitted  for  perching.  A 
poet  once  wrote  some  beautiful  verses  on 
"The  Whip-poor-will,"  but  the  editor  to 
whom  he  sent  them,  being  somewhat  of  a 
naturalist,  returned  them  with  the  criticism 
that  he  could  not  allow  the  whip-poor-will 
to  "sway  upon  a  bough"  in  his  magazine, 
since  the  bird  never  did  such  a  thing  in  a 
state  of  nature.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  while 
the  whip-poor-will  never  does  "perch"  in 
the  proper  sense  of  that  term,  it  does  some- 
times alight  on  fences  and  large  boughs 
whose  surface  is  broad  enough  for  the  bird 
to  stand  upon  without  grasping. 

I  was  surprised,  on  taking  the  dead  whip- 
poor-will  in  hand,  to  see  how  large  it  was. 
I  carried  it  home  and  measured  it.    Its  total 
128 


A  Doorstep  Singer 

length,  from  the  tip  of  the  bill  to  the  tip  of 
the  tail,  was  ten  inches,  and  its  wing-spread 
was  a  trifle  less  than  thirteen  inches. 

The  whip-poor-will  is  so  retiring  in  its 
habits,  and  so  seldom  seen  by  day,  that  very 
little  is  known  about  its  ways,  even  by  the 
most  experienced  naturalists.  If  any  one 
who  reads  this  chapter  has  a  chance  to  ob- 
serve this  mysterious  bird,  and  will  note  its 
actions,  he  may  be  sure  that  the  information 
thus  gained  will  be  welcome  to  any  editor 
or  any  writer  upon  natural  history.  The 
chapters  devoted  to  the  whip-poor-will,  in 
either  popular  or  scientific  bird-literature, 
are  still  rather  meager. 


129 


ALONG  THE  LILY-PADS 

UNDER  the  broad  green  leaves  of  the 
water-lilies,  that  fringe  the  edges  of  lakes, 
ponds,  and  slow-flowing  streams,  there 
lurks,  during  the  warm  months  of  the  year, 
that  watchful  privateer  of  fishes,  the  true 
pike  (Eso.r  lucius),  more  commonly  and  in- 
correctly called  pickerel.  The  real  pickerel 
is  a  smaller,  less  distinctly,  and  brilliantly 
marked  fish,  of  a  dull  greenish  hue.  It  fre- 
quents the  same  waters  and  lurking  places 
as  the  pike,  and  is,  perhaps,  equally  vora- 
cious and  gamy;  but  its  inferior  size  and 
strength  and  duller  markings  make  it  seem 
less  of  a  prize  to  the  keen  fisherman,  who 
casts  his  minnow  or  his  troll  into  the  dark, 
still-flowing  water.  In  rivers  and  large 
creeks  the  pike  seems  to  exceed  in  numbers 
his  smaller  and  weaker  cousin,  the  pickerel ; 
but  where  the  stream  is  only  a  few  yards 
wide,  and  flows  between  reedy  borders,  in 
130 


Along  the  Lily-Pads 

low-lying  meadows,  very  seldom  does  the 
angler  add  one  of  the  great  spotted  pike 
to  his  catch.  His  string  or  creel  will  be 
made  up  chiefly  of  the  greenish  grass-pick- 
erel, ranging  from  a  quarter  of  a  pound  to 
two  pounds  in  weight,  with,  probably,  a 
welcome  sprinkling  of  large  perch,  which 
take  the  troll  almost  as  readily  as  the  pick- 
erel itself. 

There  are  two  methods  of  fishing  for  pike 
and  pickerel.  One  is  to  troll  from  a  boat, 
rowed  or  paddled  slowly  and  cautiously 
along  the  edges  of  the  weeds  and  lily-pads, 
with  a  trailing  line  of  from  forty  to  eighty 
feet  in  length,  to  which  is  attached  a  polished 
metal  spoon  and  gang  of  hooks.  The  other 
is  the  method  of  fishing  from  land.  The 
angler  walks  leisurely  along,  at  a  little  dis- 
tance from  the  bank  of  the  stream,  so  as  to 
be  out  of  sight,  and  casts  his  troll  or  bait 
with  a  rod.  For  small  streams,  where  the 
use  of  a  boat  would  be  impracticable,  fish- 
ing from  the  land  is,  of  course,  the  only 
method;  and  some  anglers,  of  active  bodily 
habits,  prefer  it  even  for  lake  or  river  fish- 
ing, as  being,  on  the  whole,  a  more  skillful 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

and  sportsman-like  method,  furnishing  both 
greater  variety  of  sport  and  superior  phys- 
ical exercise. 

But  on  a  lazy  summer  day  there  certainly 
is  a  fitness  and  charm  about  fishing  at  one's 
ease  from  a  boat  along  the  lily-pads,  waiting 
with  a  pleasant  anticipatory  thrill  for  the 
tug  on  the  line  that  announces  the  strike  of 
pike  or  pickerel — a  charm  that  one  misses 
if  tramping  along  the  bank  in  the  sweltering 
sun.  Even  if  the  angler  serves  as  his  own 
oarsman,  facing  the  stern,  with  the  line 
gripped  in  his  teeth,  the  exercise  is  neces- 
sarily so  gentle  and  almost  dreamily  dally- 
ing, as  to  seem  little  more  than  a  rhythmic 
swaying  of  the  body,  in  harmony  with  the 
languid  pulsations  of  air  stealing  over  the 
meadows.  The  old  and  accustomed  fisher- 
man, by  a  kind  of  instinct  or  clairvoyance, 
divines  the  windings  of  the  stream,  and 
urges  his  craft  noiselessly  along,  keeping 
always  just  outside  the  fringing  weeds  and 
lilies,  that  his  hooks  may  not  foul  in  them. 
Even  the  novice  finds  that  an  occasional 
quick,  sidewise  glance  enables  him  to  keep 
his  bearings,  and  he  soon  acquires  the  art 
of  feeling  his  way  along,  while  his  attention 
132 


Along  the  Lily-Pads 

is  concentrated  chiefly  on  the  taut  line  that 
throbs  and  vibrates  in  his  teeth. 

The  angler  who  has  never  fished  with  his 
teeth  has  missed  a  certain  subtle,  keen  re- 
finement of  nerve-excitation  that  must  be 
experienced  to  be  appreciated.  There  is  an 
exquisite  delicacy  and  minuteness  of  report 
constantly  flashing  over  the  nerves  to  the 
brain.  Every  throb  and  quiver  of  the  spin- 
ning spoon,  every  slightest  obstacle  it  en- 
counters on  its  way,  the  swing  of  the  strain- 
ing line  across  a  bend  in  the  stream,  the 
impact  of  a  reed  or  lily-stem  along  which  it 
drags  for  a  moment,  the  slight  snap  of  the 
merest  tendril  caught  by  a  hook,  and  the  leap 
of  the  spoon  as  it  is  released,  the  very  rush 
of  the  pike  or  pickerel  from  his  hiding-place, 
and  the  preliminary  shock  of  contact  with 
the  hooks  ere  the  sudden  tremendous  tug  of 
the  strike  itself — all  these  submarine  secrets 
are  telegraphed  to  the  angler's  brain  through 
the  delicate,  sensitive  nerves  of  the  jaw, 
while  he  sits  expectant,  with  his  fifty  feet 
of  line  between  his  teeth.  I  have  heard  it 
said  that  sometimes  a  fisherman  loses  a  tooth 
when  a  monster  pike  grabs  his  hooks;  but, 
if  so,  the  man  must  either  be  asleep  or  of  the 

'33 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

dullest  and  most  phlegmatic  nervous  temper- 
ament, for  I  have  never  known  an  instance 
when  there  was  not  ample  warning,  from  the 
initial  contact  of  the  fish  with  the  spoon  or 
minnow,  for  catching  the  line  with  the  hand 
in  season  to  meet  the  tug  and  surge  of  the 
strike. 

Some  fishermen  use  a  very  short,  thick 
rod  in  trolling  alone  from  a  boat,  laying  the 
rod  with  the  butt  under  one  thwart  and  the 
tip  over  another,  or  holding  it  between  the 
legs.  I  have  also  seen  anglers  carry  the  line 
at  the  tip  of  a  small  stick,  about  six  inches 
long,  which  they  held  in  one  hand  as  they 
rowed.  But  it  has  always  seemed  to  me  that 
this  method  must  impart  an  uneven  and  er- 
ratic motion  to  the  spoon,  and  also  make  it 
liable  to  sink  and  foul. 

The  ideal  trolling-ground  is  a  small,  deep, 
rather  sluggish  river,  winding  through  low 
meadows,  with  now  and  then  a  lofty  decid- 
uous grove,  deep  with  shade  and  coolness, 
or  a  wooded  ridge  thrusting  down  to  the 
water's  edge  and  breaking  the  quiet  of  the 
lowland  scenery  with  a  picturesque  bluff  or 
cliff.  There  is  an  indescribable  charm  about 
winding  in  and  out,  to  and  fro,  with  the  sin- 


Along  the  Lily-Pads 

uous  meanderings  of  such  a  stream;  the 
scenery  constantly  changing,  and  yet  pre- 
serving a  sort  of  panoramic  unity  and  con- 
tinuity ;  sunlight  alternating  with  shadow  on 
the  still-flowing  waters;  the  song  of  some 
hidden  veery  or  sparrow  coming  to  us  out 
of  the  cool  gloom  as  we  drift  along  the 
woods;  and  in  the  broad  sunlight  beyond, 
the  silence  of  shimmering  meadows  and  the 
grateful  touch  of  the  breeze  that  brings  to 
us  the  fragrance  of  new-mown  hay. 

Of  such  things  as  these,  as  well  as  the 
thrill  and  stimulus  of  healthful  sport,  is 
the  angler's  joy  compounded.  The  secret 
of  it  all  lies  in  being  close  to  nature's  heart, 
with  something  concrete,  definite,  and  uni- 
versally attractive  to  draw  one  and  hold  one 
there.  Fishing  is  but  half,  and  perhaps  the 
lesser  half,  of  the  fisherman's  delight.  It  is 
nature's  mothering  of  him  that  makes  him 
so  childlike  content.  He  casts  his  hooks 
for  bass  and  trout  and  pickerel,  and  nature 
slyly  and  lovingly  fixes  to  them  the  roses  of 
the  sunset,  the  diamonds  of  the  morning 
dew,  the  invisible  fragrances  of  the  air,  the 
sweetest  sights  and  sounds  and  odors  of  the 
great  outdoor  world — all  those  things  that 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

every  normal  man  loves  as  his  primal  herit- 
age. We  go  out  and  row  a  boat,  or  cast  a 
troll,  along  the  lily-pads,  and  whether  the 
fish  bite  or  not,  with  what  a  basketful  and 
heartful  of  outdoor  treasure  we  return! 
Be  the  layer  at  the  bottom  ever  so  thin,  that 
which  generous  nature  adds  to  our  catch 
overfills  the  creel. 


136 


SEPTEMBER  TRAMPS 

WHEN  the  first  frost  sharpens  the  air, 
then  come  new  zest  and  vigor  into  the  blood. 
The  lover  of  nature  no  longer  cares  to  lie 
on  his  back  and  watch  the  birds  and  the 
clouds.  The  horizontal  has  lost  its  charm 
for  him,  and  he  is  eager  for  the  perpendic- 
ular —  the  progressively  perpendicular. 
Nothing  will  satisfy  him  now  but  a  good, 
vigorous  tramp.  He  must  stretch  his  legs 
over  hill  and  dale  for  hours  at  a  time,  re- 
joicing in  the  fresh  energy  breathed  in 
sparkling  air  after  a  hoar-frost  has  whitened 
the  grass. 

Give  me  a  crisp  September  morning  for 
a  tramp — none  of  those  listless  days  while 
summer  still  lingers  in  the  lap  of  fall,  but 
one  of  those  electric  mornings  after  the  first 
great  change  in  the  atmosphere  that  comes 
with  the  breaking  of  summer's  backbone. 
It  may  be  toward  the  last  of  September,  or 
it  may  be  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  month 
— seasons  differ ;  but  some  time  during  Sep- 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

tember  will  come  the  first  ideal  morning  to 
put  on  one's  walking-shoes  and  start  off  for 
an  all-day's  tramp.  Nothing  less  would  ap- 
pease that  keen  craving  in  your  blood.  The 
miles  must  ring  beneath  your  walking-stick. 
It  is  a  joy  just  to  leave  them  behind  you. 

Everywhere  there  is  delight  for  the  eye. 
Nature  has  already  begun  her  marvelous 
frescoing  and  tessellating  process  in  the 
leaves  of  the  trees  and  the  herbage  of  mead- 
ows and  marshes.  From  now  until  the  last 
of  October  we  shall  dwell  in  the  finest  art- 
gallery  that  was  ever  opened  under  the  sky. 
No  human  brush  could  possibly  create,  or 
even  imitate,  the  splendor  of  these  autumn 
colors.  Take  them  either  in  the  mass,  or  in 
particular  and  detailed  effects,  and  they  are 
as  immensely  superior  to  anything  art  can 
produce  as  sunlight  is  superior  to  lamp- 
light. Take  a  single  autumn  leaf — the  first 
red  oriflamme  of  this  maple,  for  instance — 
and  study  the  texture  of  the  coloring,  the 
marvelously  delicate  gradation  of  shades, 
the  richness  and  gloss  of  what  we  might 
call  its  color-bloom  (something  no  human 
painting  ever  attains  to),  and  the  seeming 
transparency  of  the  pigment.  Put  it  under 
138 


September  Tramps 

the  microscope — what  beauty  still!  Your 
painter's  leaf  would  be  all  coarse  blotch  and 
daub.  And  then  imagine  what  the  land- 
scape is  going  to  be  a  couple  of  weeks  hence 
— a  grand  kaleidoscope  of  sunsets  and  rain- 
bows. And  this  is  nature's  art-gallery  that 
men  abandon  in  September  for  the  tawdry 
effects  of  city  "exhibitions !"  Nature  would 
have  admitted  them  free,  and  given  them  a 
catalogue,  and  invited  them  to  an  oxygen- 
party  to  boot ! 

If  you  want  mountain  views,  you  must 
choose  a  cool  September  morning  after  a 
heavy  rain.  The  atmosphere  of  no  other 
month  can  be  washed  so  crystal-clean.  It 
has  seemed  to  me  often  to  have  a  peculiarly 
magnifying  effect,  as  if  all  that  sparkling 
gulf  of  air  that  lies  between  you  and  the  dis- 
tant object  were  a  vast,  polished  lens,  con- 
caved just  right  to  make  for  you  a  cosmical 
telescope.  I  shall  never  forget  the  joy,  the 
rapture,  of  some  of  those  September  moun- 
tain-climbs of  my  boyhood,  when,  in  rugged 
Vermont,  I  scaled  some  familiar  peak  with 
my  companions,  after  a  night's  rain,  and  be- 
held, as  it  seemed  to  me,  all  the  kingdoms  of 
the  earth  and  their  glory  spread  out  before 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

my  far-ranging  vision.  Montreal — ninety 
miles  away — -clearly  visible  from  Mansfield, 
yes,  even  from  Cobble  Hill !  The  grand, 
ghostlike  company  of  the  Presidential 
Range  in  New  Hampshire  marching  before 
me  as  I  stood  on  the  great  cliff  of  Camel's 
Hump — what  revelations  for  a  boy  who  had 
never  been  forty  miles  away  from  home! 
Ah!  those  September  mountain  tramps, 
when  the  wine  of  the  autumn  air  and  the 
magnetism  of  frost  sang  together  in  my 
veins,  and  the  heart  of  youth  was  so  light 
that  it  seemed  to  buoy  up  the  body  like 
wings!  That  was  the  kind  of  Emersonian 
freedom  and  footlooseness  that  does  indeed 
make  the  pomp  of  emperors  seem  ridiculous. 
One  is  not  much  disposed  to  observe 
minutely,  I  think,  on  a  September  tramp. 
The  last  of  the  birds  and  the  last  of  the 
flowers  may  challenge  a  somewhat  languid 
interest,  but  for  my  own  part  I  like  to  take 
things  in  the  mass,  in  the  aggregate,  when 
nature's  long  season  of  emphasized  individ- 
ualism is  on  the  wane.  For  months  we  na- 
ture-lovers have  been  burdening  our  brains 
and  note-books  with  observations  of  con- 
crete life  in  a  thousand  different  forms.  In- 
140 


September  Tramps 

numerable  birds,  flowers,  insects,  trees, 
plants,  and  four-footed  creatures  have  con- 
fronted us  at  every  step  and  stimulated  curi- 
osity and  study.  Now  the  birds  have  mostly 
departed,  the  flowers  are  a  few  and  sedate 
company,  the  insects  are  frost-killed  or 
driven  into  retirement,  and  I  for  one  am 
tired  of  particularizing-,  and  am  glad  to  go 
back  for  a  time  to  those  free,  buoyant, 
youthful  impressions  of  nature  as  a  whole. 
Instead  of  pulling  to  pieces  single  flowers 
I  want  to  let  my  eye  range  over  a  whole 
living  field  of  them,  assembled  in  a  carpet 
of  purple  and  gold.  I  do  not  care  to  ask 
their  names.  I  simply  want  them  to  make 
an  impression  of  beauty  and  harmony  and 
joy  upon  my  spirit.  I  find  a  distinct  relief 
in  not  following  up  every  bird-twitter  to 
some  thicket  to  learn  what  bird  is  hiding 
there.  The  few  songs  the  birds  are  still 
singing  I  will  enjoy  as  psalms  of  gratitude, 
not  as  public  exhibitions  demanding  some 
sort  of  analysis  and  criticism. 

It  is  because  of  this  larger  and  freer 

mood  that  I  always  look  forward  to  my 

September  tramps  with  special  delight.     I 

think  then  is  the  time  when  any  man  or 

141 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

woman  with  a  native  vein  of  poetry  is 
likely  to  get  more  inspiration  out  of  na- 
ture than  at  any  other  season — simply 
because  the  foreground  of  this  subordinate 
life  is  not  so  bewilderingly  crowded,  and 
there  is  more  opportunity  and  more  invita- 
tion to  seek  the  large  impression  of  nature 
— the  tout  ensemble.  That  is  the  impression 
out  of  which  religious  feeling  rises.  If  we 
are  seeking  God  in  nature,  we  shall  not  find 
him  so  readily  by  analysis  as  by  synthesis; 
not  by  minute  study  of  individuals  and  par- 
ticulars, but  by  free,  joyous  acceptance  of 
the  effect  of  nature  as  a  whole.  So,  I  think, 
we  shall  be  justified  in  leaving  our  note- 
books at  home  in  September,  and  just  aban- 
doning ourselves  to  the  influence  of  nature 
upon  the  spirit.  Something  better  may  come 
out  of  that  than  the  discovery  of  a  new  plant 
or  the  identification  of  a  long-sought  bird. 
In  closing,  let  me  "come  down  a  peg," 
as  the  saying  is,  and  make  a  few  practical 
suggestions  to  the  tramper  simply  as  a 
tramper.  It  is  a  very  different  thing  from 
strolling  about  for  an  hour  or  two  in  the 
summer  woods,  this  starting  off  for  a  vigor- 
ous, leg-stretching,  fifteen-or-twenty-mile, 
142 


September  Tramps 

all-day  tramp.  The  first  two  or  three  jaunts 
will  be  terribly  wearying.  But  do  not  get 
discouraged.  The  system  soon  grows 
toughened  to  such  work.  I  have  known 
semi-invalids,  who  at  home  were  exhausted 
by  a  walk  of  a  mile,  to  start  on  a  trip  into 
the  backwoods  and  come  out  thinking  noth- 
ing of  fifteen  miles  a  day,  with  a  full  back- 
load  of  camp  supplies.  There  is  nothing 
dangerous  about  muscle-weariness  so  long 
as  it  does  not  amount  to  exhaustion.  Keep 
on  tramping,  and  you  will  soon  gain  the 
strength  to  tramp  as  far  as  you  please. 

Foot-gear  is  a  very  important  matter  with 
the  pedestrian.  If  you  start  out  improperly 
shod,  and  get  seriously  footsore  in  the  be- 
ginning, it  will  be  all  up  with  you  for  the 
season.  My  plan  is  to  wear  the  thickest 
winter  socks  as  a  sort  of  cushion  for  the 
feet,  no  matter  what  the  season  may  be,  and 
a  pair  of  common-sense,  well-broken  shoes 
— shoes  that  I  have  spent  months  judiciously 
adapting  to  my  feet.  It  is  a  labor  of  love, 
as  well  as  of  wisdom,  to  break  in  a  pair  of 
fall  walking-shoes  during  the  summer.  You 
should  begin  with  them  as  early  as  the  mid- 
dle of  July,  and  then  by  the  ist  of  September 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

they  will  be  as  fine  as  silk  to  the  feet,  and  if 
they  were  shoes  of  good  quality  to  begin 
with,  will  last  you  all  the  fall  for  hard 
usage.  Then  have  them  tapped  and  heeled, 
and  they  will  be  as  good  as  new — better,  be- 
cause already  broken — for  your  spring 
tramps. 

Wear  light  but  warm  clothing  for  fall 
tramps — never  an  overcoat,  which  is  as 
much  of  an  abomination  for  a  pedestrian  as 
rubber  boots  for  a  swimmer.  A  sweater  is 
the  ideal  heat-conserving  garment.  That, 
with  a  comparatively  light  coat,  will  be  suf- 
ficient for  September  tramps.  Later  on  ex- 
change the  ordinary  coat  for  a  reefer  or 
leather  jacket. 

These  are  commonplace  hints,  to  be  sure, 
but,  as  experience  teaches  me,  of  the  great- 
est value.  A  fly  can  spoil  your  delicate 
ointment,  and  a  sore  heel  or  toe  can  dispel 
any  amount  of  poetry  and  ideal  enjoyment. 
And  since  the  Pegasus  of  the  rambler  must 
always  be  "shank's  mare,"  it  behooves  him 
to  see  to  it  that  his  steed  is  well  shod  and 
harnessed. 


144 


THE  PATH  TO  JOE'S  POND 

IT  is  first  a  road,  a  winding,  clambering, 
stony  mountain  road;  but  long  before  it 
reaches  Joe's  Pond  it  dwindles  into  a  foot- 
path, skirting  the  ridges,  diving  into  the  hol- 
low to  cross  the  brook,  and  sometimes  mak- 
ing a  dash  at  a  ledge  and  going  up  over  the 
top  of  it  like  a  squirrel.  Every  foot  of  the 
way,  from  the  edge  of  the  village  to  the 
forest-circled  pond,  is  a  delight  to  the  na- 
ture-lover with  sound  legs  and  lungs.  A 
long,  sweet,  quiet  walk  it  is,  with  the  grand 
old  hills  before  one,  and  the  lovely  valley 
behind — like  going  up  the  steps  of  God's 
temple  with  an  offering  of  gladness  and 
gratitude  in  one's  heart. 

To  begin  with,  we  cross  the  river  by  way 
of  the  open  bridge,  and  look  down  at  the 
wild  water  foaming  between  the  rocks,  as 
it  leaps  over  the  shoulder  of  the  village  into 
the  mill-pond.  Then  up  the  valley,  past 
scattered  farms,  with  old  Baldtop  glistening 
in  front  of  us,  and  all  about  him  the  lesser 

10  145 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

hills  like  a  group  of  half-grown  children. 
The  crisp  autumn  air  invades  our  blood, 
and  the  damp  smell  of  alders  and  black  loam 
and  decaying  ferns  refreshes  the  sense  and 
fills  the  mind  with  a  thousand  sweet  asso- 
ciations of  bygone  days.  A  blue  jay  utters 
his  clear,  metallic  cry — that  characteristic 
fall  note — and  memories  of  boyish  nutting 
trips  and  squirrel  hunts  rush  over  us  with  a 
longing  sweetness  that  is  almost  pain.  See, 
there  is  the  same  old  fence,  zigzagging  up 
the  hill,  where  we  used  to  head  off  the 
"grays"  in  their  excursions  from  the  sugar- 
grove  to  the  cornfield;  and  the  gnarled  oak 
is  still  standing,  half-way  up  the  slope, 
around  which  we  wound  such  circles  of  ex- 
citement, as  with  aching  necks  we  peered 
for  some  sign  of  the  frightened  squirrel 
curled  in  a  bunch  among  the  topmost  leaves. 
There ! — do  you  hear  the  rattling  roar  of  the 
old  musket,  as  it  hurls  a  handful  of  shot 
through  the  tree-tops  ?  We  've  hit  him ! — 
and  down  he  comes,  clinging  and  bumping, 
to  strike  the  hard  pasture  turf  with  a  thud — 
dead  as  a  stone. 

Above  the  lonely  farms  the  way  to  Joe's 
Pond  becomes  a  logging-road,  rough  with 
146 


The  Path  to  Joe's  Pond 

rotting  "corduroy,"  deeply  rutted  by  the 
groaning  wheels  of  the  lumber  wagons,  and 
rolling  and  uneven  as  a  path  at  sea.  On  the 
drier  ridges  we  find  the  little  round  hollows 
where  the  dust-loving  partridges  have  wal- 
lowed in  the  soil,  leaving  a  feather  here  and 
there,  or  the  etching  of  a  spread  wing  to 
mark  some  sudden  flight.  And  once  in  a 
while  we  hear  a  grouse  boom  away  into  the 
deep  woods,  so  far  ahead  that  we  can  not 
get  even  a  gray  glimpse  of  him.  How  shy 
these  game-birds  are  getting,  nowadays! 
Why,  when  we  were  boys,  they  would  walk 
across  the  path  like  chickens  in  front  of  us, 
and  then  flop  up  into  a  neighboring  tree, 
to  look  down  at  us  and  ask  with  their  beady 
eyes,  "Boys,  where 's  your  pole?  Why 
do  n't  you  get  one  and  knock  us  off  ?"  The 
breechloader  and  the  stealthy  setter  have 
been  at  work  in  these  woods  since  the  old 
days,  and  the  birds  have  slowly  learned  wis- 
dom. Now  their  education  seems  about 
complete,  and  it  will  take  a  crafty  sports- 
man indeed  to  get  within  shooting  distance 
of  them. 

Deeper  and  deeper  into  the  woods  plunges 
the  old  logging  road.    Now  we  have  passed 
147 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

the  last  piles  of  cord-wood,  cut  and  stacked 
so  long  ago  that  they  are  crumbling  to  the 
very  center  with  decay.  How  much  of 
man's  labor  lost,  how  much  of  nature's  beau- 
tiful garment  wasted,  in  these  lonely  moun- 
tain wood-lots,  where  the  Yankee  farmer, 
with  his  inexorable  conscience  for  work, 
toils  through  dull  winter  days,  only  to  ac- 
cumulate more  of  the  fruits  of  labor  than 
the  world  accessible  to  him  can  use,  and  so 
to  leave  good  oak  and  birch  and  maple  logs 
for  the  rains  to  rot  and  the  worms  to  bur- 
row! Everywhere,  on  all  roads  to  Joe's 
Pond,  or  whose  pond  soever,  deep  in  the 
woods  of  these  remote  mountain  farms,  we 
find  the  decaying  woodpile,  a  monument  to 
man's  wasteful  use  or  misuse  of  the  boun- 
ties of  nature.  And  meanwhile  the  brook 
that  waters  the  meadow  and  the  pasture 
dwindles  in  August  to  a  sickly  thread,  and 
in  April  pours  its  sudden  thunderous  flood 
into  the  valley,  devouring  all  in  its  path,  a 
roaring,  revengeful,  merciless  fiend.  Such 
are  nature's  penalties  for  the  improvident 
mowing  down  of  mountain  forests. 

Beyond  the  last  moldering  woodpile  we 
must  travel  single  file,  for  now  we  are  fairly 
148 


The  Path  to  Joe's  Pond 

in  the  path  to  Joe's  Pond.  The  wheel-tracks 
have  been  choked  out  by  brush,  and  only  a 
spongy,  noiseless,  winding  footway  leads  up 
the  slope  toward  the  little  sheet  of  water 
nestling  among  the  hills.  There  is  nothing 
utilitarian  about  this  path.  It  is  the  trail  of 
the  fisherman  and  the  rambler.  The  hands 
that  blazed  it  and  the  feet  that  have  beaten 
it  out  were  no  slaves  to  traffic  or  gain. 
Theirs  was  an  enterprise  of  pure  idealism. 
For  the  inextinguishable  love  of  nature,  for 
the  satisfaction  of  an  inward  craving  as  old 
as  the  race,  have  they  made  this  path  into 
the  heart  of  the  woods,  and  gone  to  and 
fro  in  it.  All  who  journey  to  Joe's  Pond 
go  in  the  same  spirit — the  romantic  spirit 
of  the  old,  free  nature-life. 

Impelled  by  that  spirit,  we  are  winding 
in  and  out  among  the  solemn  firs  and 
hemlocks,  treading  the  springy  moss  and 
mold  of  the  ancient  forest.  No  path  is  so 
easy  to  the  foot,  so  stimulating  to  the  mus- 
cles, as  a  good  trail  through  the  woods. 
The  firm  cushion  of  centuries  of  leaf-mold 
springs  beneath  every  step,  and  the  silence 
and  smoothness  of  the  path  make  walking 
seem  like  a  kind  of  gliding  or  semi-flying. 
149 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

The  cool  shadow  of  the  woods,  the  pure, 
resinous,  bracing  air,  and  anon  the  music 
of  some  cascading  brook,  all  speed  the 
tramper  on  his  way  and  make  even  the  steep 
mountain-side  an  exhilaration  and  refresh- 
ment. 

Such  is  the  path  to  Joe's  Pond ;  and  were 
it  not  for  the  sudden,  crystal  beauty  of  the 
water,  bursting  upon  the  vision  like  a  dia- 
mond set  about  with  emeralds,  one  would 
sorely  regret  the  ending  of  the  trail  on  the 
lonely  shore  of  the  pond.  But  what  can  one 
desire  to  do,  save  to  sink  down  on  the  mossy 
bank  where  the  path  ends,  and  gaze  and 
gaze  and  drink  one's  soul  full  of  the  beauty 
of  that  sleeping  lakelet  in  the  hills,  with 
Baldtop  and  the  rest  of  the  giants  standing 
over  its  cradle  in  perpetual  guardianship? 
Beyond  is  all  a  tangled  and  knotted  wilder- 
ness, where  one  must  fairly  hew  his  way 
through  fallen  timber  and  interlacing  thick- 
ets. But  what  does  one  care,  since  he  has 
come  safely  and  easily  to  Joe's  Pond?  He 
wishes  to  go  no  farther.  Enough  to  linger 
there  all  the  beautiful,  silent  September 
day,  looking  down  upon  mirrored  woods 
and  mountains,  and  looking  up  to  shining 


The  Path  to  Joe's  Pond 

peaks  and  sky.  If  it  be  in  season  for  the 
trout,  of  which  there  are  none  like  those 
in  Joe's  Pond,  one  may  venture  out  on 
every  man's  raft,  if  he  will,  and  cast  his 
fly  across  that  perfect  mirror.  But  whether 
the  trout  rise  or  not,  he  will  be  well  con- 
tent. For  he  has  come  from  far  to  tread 
the  path  through  the  woods.  He  belongs 
to  the  brotherhood  of  those  to  whom  na- 
ture is  all-sufficient. 


A  QUEST  OF  FALL  BERRIES 

YESTERDAY  I  went  berrying — not  for  any 
gratification  of  the  palate  or  replenishment 
of  the  larder,  for  the  time  is  late  October, 
and  the  common  edible  berries  are  gone  by. 
I  went  to  gather  a  bunch  of  autumn  bloom ; 
for  the  wild  berries  are  the  flowers  of  the 
fall,  many  of  them  as  brilliant  in  color  and 
beautiful  in  arrangement  as  the  spring  and 
summer  blossoms  whose  children  they  are. 
In  October  and  early  November  the  autumn 
woods  and  swamps  and  clearings  are  bright 
with  patches  of  color,  more  conspicuous 
often  than  the  clusters  of  flowers  which 
caught  the  eye  so  pleasantly  in  May  and 
June.  You  can  hardly  enter  the  woods  or 
brush-grown  clearings  anywhere  without 
being  enticed  on  every  hand  by  the  sparkle 
of  berries,  red,  yellow,  purple,  ivory-white, 
blue,  black,  brown,  and  orange.  The  reds 
predominate,  and  OR  all  sides  you  see  their 
elfin  bonfires  burning,  some  low  down  and 
half  hidden,  others  like  beacons  blazing  high 
152 


A  Quest  of  Fall  Berries 

and  clear.  Autumn,  with  its  frost-painted 
leaves  and  bright  berries,  has  vastly  more 
splendor  of  color  than  flowery  June  Itself. 
The  fragrance  is  lacking,  to  be  sure;  but 
for  the  pleasure  of  the  eye  give  me  a  fall 
morning,  after  the  first  sharp  frost.  Then 
indeed  one  thanks  God  for  the  priceless 
privilege  of  sight. 

My  course  led  me  first  up  a  ragged  slope, 
covered  with  low  bushes  and  dotted  with 
piles  of  brush.  Half  way  up  the  hill  I  came 
upon  the  small,  dark  blue  berry  of  the 
Solomon's  seal,  drooping  gracefully  from  its 
delicately  curved  flower-stalk.  The  Solo- 
mon's seal  is  a  plant  that  loves  the  shade, 
but  it  also  loves  and  clings  to  the  spots 
where  its  vigorous  roots  have  established 
themselves,  and  will  often  linger  in  sunny 
clearings  for  years  after  the  woods  have 
been  cut  away. 

Not  far  from  the  bed  of  Solomon's  seal,  I 
stumbled  on  a  patch  of  hobble-bush,  strag- 
gling over  the  ground  and  reproducing  its 
short,  thick  roots  at  every  few  feet — a  ver- 
itable net  and  trap  for  the  unwary  pedes- 
trian. Its  bright  coral  berries,  however,  be- 
trayed it  to  me,  and  with  a  handful  of  them 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

I  imparted  the  first  dash  of  bright  color 
to  my  basket  of  nature's  jewels.  Before  I 
reached  the  top  of  the  slope  I  had  added 
also  a  cluster  of  the  queerly-shaped,  almost 
oblong,  scarlet  berries  of  the  barberry,  one 
of  the  commonest  of  our  New  England 
shrubs,  though  not,  I  believe,  indigenous. 

On  the  edge  of  the  woods  above  the  clear- 
ing, in  a  little  depression  where  water  had 
settled  early  in  the  summer  and  left  the 
ground  moist  and  soft,  I  found  a  fringe  of 
chokeberry,  thickly  clustered  with  very  dark 
maroon-colored  berries,  shaped  like  tiny 
pears.  I  do  not  remember  that  I  ever  saw 
a  shade  of  color  exactly  corresponding  to 
that  of  the  fruit  of  the  chokeberry.  It  is 
indescribable — dark  maroon  being  the  near- 
est approach  I  can  make  to  definition.  The 
milliners  and  dressmakers  ought  to  adopt 
the  shade  and  give  it  a  name — as  they  have 
done  in  other  instances  where  the  botanist 
is  their  debtor. 

I  had  scarcely  pushed  my  way  into  the 
woods  when,  on  a  bank  shaded  by  pines  and 
hemlocks,  the  familiar,  delicate  tracery  of 
the  partridge-vine  caught  my  eye,  its  per- 
ennially green  necklace  strung  with  scat- 


A  Quest  of  Fall  Berries 

tered  scarlet  berries,  a  favorite  fruit  of  the 
ruffed  grouse  and  bob-white,  as  its  name 
implies.  I  added  a  string  of  partridge  ber- 
ries to  my  collection,  and  picked  a  few  to 
eat,  chiefly  tempted  by  the  looks  of  the 
berry,  for  it  is  dry  and  insipid  enough,  com- 
pared with  its  pungent  cousin,  the  winter- 
green  berry.  The  absence  of  moisture  in  the 
partridge-berry  makes  it  a  good  "keeper," 
and  it  is  worth  noting  that  not  infrequently 
the  berries  of  one  season  will  be  found 
mingled  with  those  of  the  previous  season 
that  have  kept  their  color  and  soundness  all 
through  the  twelvemonth. 

There  is  nothing  more  beautiful  in  the 
dark,  deep  woods  than  a  clear,  pure,  ivory- 
white  berry,  like  the  creeping  snowberry. 
I  found  an  abundance  of  these  shy  creepers 
in  a  swampy  spot  overshadowed  by  tama- 
racks. The  snowberry  is  not  a  common 
plant,  because  it  requires  certain  conditions 
of  soil,  shade,  moisture,  etc.,  that  are  not 
often  found  in  combination.  But  where  it 
does  grow  it  grows  plentifully,  and  in  the 
autumn  scatters  its  ivory  berries  over  the 
ground  like  little  snowballs.  Very  pleasing 
to  the  palate,  also,  are  these  pretty  berries, 
155 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

with  a  taste  somewhat  like  that  of  the  win- 
tergreen  berry,  though  less  aromatic.  I 
gathered  a  good  sized  bunch  of  the  vines,  for 
one  does  not  find  many  white  berries  in  a 
ramble,  and  they  add  a  delicate  beauty  to 
one's  collection  that  is  very  desirable. 

A  large  proportion  of  the  swamp-loving 
shrubs  and  plants  are  berry-bearers.  There, 
for  instance,  is  that  popular  little  preacher, 
jack-in-the-pulpit.  I  doubt  if  it  is  commonly 
known  by  those  who  are  fond  of  this  plant 
when  in  flower  that  it  justifies  itself  by 
producing  fruits  quite  equal  to  its  spring- 
time promise,  and  thereby  proclaims  itself 
superior  to  many  an  exhorter  from  a  more 
pretentious  pulpit.  The  brilliant  scarlet  ber- 
ries of  jack-in-the-pulpit  make  one  of  the 
prettiest  bits  of  color  to  be  found  in  the 
autumn  woods.  They  are  thickly  packed 
together  on  the  fleshy  spike,  and  form  a 
perfect  mass  of  crimson  under  the  hoodlike 
spathe. 

The  dwarf  cornel  is  a  swamp  shrub  that 
bears  a  bright  red  berry  of  edible  and  nour- 
ishing quality.  The  poison  sumach  has  a 
rather  inconspicuous,  whitish  berry,  ar- 
ranged in  small  clusters.  The  common 
156 


A  Quest  of  Fall  Berries 

elder,  though  not  strictly  a  swamp  plant, 
loves  low  ground,  and  is  oftenest  found  in 
cleared  spots  formerly  mucky  and  swampy, 
where  it  lifts  its  dark  purple,  umbrella-like 
clusters  of  berries  higher  often  than  a  man's 
head. 

Everybody  in  our  Eastern  States  is  famil- 
iar with  the  common  bog  cranberry,  that 
grows  so  readily  and  profusely  along  the 
New  England  seacoast  in  particular,  wher- 
ever a  piece  of  low-lying,  waste  land  is 
sufficiently  flooded  or  irrigated.  During  my 
walk  I  found  a  flourishing  cranberry  marsh 
in  the  very  heart  of  the  woods,  the  circular 
bed  lying  exposed  to  the  sky  like  the  bed  of 
some  pond  long  since  dried  up.  If  that  was 
not  its  origin,  most  likely  the  spot  was  a 
cultivated  cranberry  bog  in  years  gone  by, 
before  the  woods  had  sprung  up  on  the  de- 
serted farm.  The  common  American  cran- 
berry, however,  grows  wild  all  over  New 
England,  and  is  mentioned  by  early  writers 
as  one  of  our  native  plants. 

Skirting  the  swamp,  I  climbed  a  ridge 
beyond,  that  was  all  ablaze  with  the  crimson 
plumes  of  the  common  or  staghorn  sumach, 
each  plume  a  compacted  cone  of  small, 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

round,  hairy  berries,  pleasantly  sour  and 
acrid  to  the  taste,  and  perfectly  harmless. 
Was  there  ever  a  boy  who  did  not  love  to 
chew  the  mouth-puckering  sprays  of  the 
red  sumach  and  flood  his  much-enduring 
stomach  with  the  acrid  juice?  I  picked 
four  of  the  brilliant  cones  for  my  autumn 
nosegay.  Then,  descending  the  other  slope 
of  the  ridge,  I  stopped  by  the  tumble- 
down stone  wall  that  skirted  a  mountain 
road,  to  gather  a  few  of  the  thick  black  clus- 
ters of  wild  sarsaparilla  berries  brushing  the 
stones.  A  little  farther  along  the  wall  I  found 
some  bearberry  bushes,  a  trailing  shrub 
with  evergreen  leaves.  There  were  but  few 
berries  on  the  low  bushes,  but  these  were  a 
beautiful,  clear,  almost  transparent  red,  and 
so  pleasant  in  taste  that  one  can  readily  ap- 
preciate the  relish  with  which,  in  good  old 
times,  bears  were  said  to  devour  them. 

Climbing  over  the  wall  into  the  grass- 
grown  road,  I  followed  the  faint  wheel- 
tracks  down  into  a  little  hollow  where  a 
brook  crossed  the  road.  On  both  sides  of 
the  stream  the  stone  wall  was  covered  with 
the  twining,  vinelike  stems  of  the  bitter- 
sweet, heavily  fruited  with  deep  orange 
158 


A  Quest  of  Fall  Berries 

pods,  whose  curling  edges  revealed  the  scar- 
let seeds  within.  Intermingled  with  the 
stems  of  bittersweet,  but  climbing  higher, 
and  spreading  even  over  the  top  of  the  sur- 
rounding thicket,  were  the  vines  of  the 
moonseed,  holding  their  scattered  blue-black 
berries  in  small,  loose  clusters.  I  was  pleas- 
antly surprised  to  find  the  bunchberry 
growing  close  to  the  water's  edge,  just  over 
the  wall,  and  pushed  my  way  through  the 
vines  to  gather  a  handful  of  the  pretty  red 
berries,  so  like  coral  beads. 

I  found  hawthorn  and  dogwood  bushes 
growing  by  the  sides  of  the  road,  soon  after 
I  left  the  brook.  I  was  glad  to  get  the  beau- 
tiful light  blue  berries  of  the  dogwood,  so 
unlike  any  I  had  yet  found ;  and  the  scarlet- 
spattered  sprays  of  hawthorn  made  a  fine 
display  on  top  of  the  basket. 

I  found  one  other  white  berry  during  my 
ramble — the  white  baneberry,  not  as  clear 
and  transparent  in  color  as  the  snowberry, 
nor  as  solidly  white,  as  it  is  marked  by  a 
single  obscure,  cloudy  spot  near  one  end. 
But  it  is  beautifully  oval  in  shape,  and  hangs 
from  the  parent  shrub  in  feathery  clusters 
that  delight  the  eye. 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

Altogether  the  prettiest  of  the  many  red 
berries  in  my  basket  were  the  delicate  clus- 
ters of  the  mountain  holly,  which  I  discov- 
ered, just  as  I  was  about  to  leave  the  moun- 
tain road,  in  a  thicket  some  rods  ahead. 
The  mountain  holly  is  a  small  shrub  with 
very  light  gray,  almost  white,  bark.  Its  ber- 
ries are  borne  in  thick  clusters,  and  are  of 
the  most  vivid,  clear,  coral-like  color,  so 
bright  and  smooth  that  when  you  hold  them 
up  to  the  eye  they  seem  almost  transparent. 

On  my  way  home  I  added  to  my  collection 
of  red  berries  the  fruit  of  the  black  alder, 
some  clusters  of  red-berried  elder,  and  a 
pretty  little  red  berry  speckled  with  purple 
— the  berry  of  the  false  Solomon's  seal.  Of 
wintergreen  berries,  of  course,  I  found  a 
plenty  also.  Other  purple  or  purplish  ber- 
ries gathered  were  those  of  the  pokeweed 
and  Indian  cucumber-root.  Only  one  kind 
of  yellow  berry  rewarded  my  search,  and 
that  was  the  ground-cherry,  which  grows  on 
a  thick-branched,  spreading  plant,  almost  a 
shrub  in  size,  and  is  curiously  protected  by  a 
kind  of  loose  envelope. 

My  ramble  took  me  over  a  piece  of  coun- 
try less  than  four  miles  square,  yet  I  find 
1 60 


A  Quest  of  Fall  Berries 

that  I  gathered  about  thirty  different  vari- 
eties of  berries,  all  of  them  beautiful,  either 
in  color,  form,  or  arrangement,  and  all 
worthy  to  be  called,  in  the  truest  and  most 
appropriate  sense,  the  jewels  which  nature 
has  made  to  adorn  her  ripened  beauty  as  the 
time  of  its  fading  draws  near. 


ii  161 


THE  AUTUMN  WOOD-PATH 

THE  woods  are  never  so  full  of  interest 
and  fascination  as  when  the  first  frosts  have 
touched  the  leaves,  and  purified  the  crisp, 
nipping  air,  and  filled  the  forest  with  that 
expectant  hush  that  follows  the  insect-hum 
and  bird-music  of  summer.  Then,  as  one 
walks  along  the  quiet  wood-path,  he  expe- 
riences again  something  of  the  vanished 
child-sense  of  fairyland.  The  forest  aisles 
are  full  of  mystery;  the  glint  of  sunshine 
in  near-by  glades  and  the  flicker  of  falling 
golden  leaves  mingle  like  fact  and  fancy; 
and  in  the  hush  and  glimmer  and  beauty  of 
the  scene  one  expects  to  see  anything,  from 
fairies  dancing  on  the  moss,  to  princes  and 
princesses  riding  suddenly  across  the  path, 
with  plumes  and  jewels  and  jingling  bri- 
dles. An  enchanted  place  is  the  October 
wood.  You  wonder  at  the  change  that  has 
come  over  it  since  the  thrush  and  the  vireo 
and  the  warbler  packed  their  flutes  and 
started  slowly  and  silently  southward. 
162 


The  Autumn  Wood-Path 

Strange  how  grateful  it  is  to  the  ear,  some- 
times, not  to  hear  the  birds  singing!  But 
it  is  because  you  have  heard  them  singing 
all  summer  long  that  you  can  be  pleased 
with  October's  silence.  The  sweetest  song 
needs  silence  after  it  to  fill  the  measure  of 
its  delight. 

But  the  autumn  woods  have  the  bird  cries, 
though  not  the  bird  songs.  You  will  not 
have  walked  far  along  the  wood-path  before 
you  are  startled  by  that  feathered  alarmist, 
the  blue  jay.  He  hears  you,  or  rather  di- 
vines you,  afar  off,  and  makes  the  woods 
ring  with  his  hoarse  scream  of  warning.  By 
and  by  you  see  him,  plunging  from  tree  to 
tree  in  short,  scolding  nights,  absurdly  in- 
dignant that  you  should  have  invaded  his 
privacy,  even  so  long  after  the  nesting  sea- 
son is  over.  His  is  the  cry  that  you  will 
oftenest  hear  in  the  woods  from  now  until 
snow  flies.  It  is  one  of  the  audible  acces- 
sories of  an  autumn  walk;  and  though  the 
jay's  voice  is  essentially  harsh,  I  have 
learned  to  love  it  because  of  its  associations. 
This  bird  has  two  distinct  cries — you  could 
never  call  them  songs,  either  in  quality  or 
variety  of  sound.  One  is  the  penetrating, 
163 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

far-sounding,  raucous  scream  that  he  uses 
when  doing  self-imposed  sentinel  duty;  the 
other  is  a  thin,  short,  metallic  cry  that 
sounds  in  the  distance  like  the  ringing  of  a 
small  hammer  on  a  blacksmith's  anvil.  The 
latter  sound  is  almost  musical,  and,  with  its 
associations,  soon  grows  to  be  inexpressibly 
pleasing  to  one  who  loves  to  ramble  at  all 
seasons  of  the  year. 

Another  autumn  bird  cry,  harsh  in  itself, 
but  softened  by  surroundings  and  associ- 
ations, is  that  of  the  crow — a  restless  bird 
always,  but  more  than  ever  so  when  frosty 
weather  has  set  in  and  pilgrimages,  both 
long  and  short,  are  in  order.  He  labors  over 
the  woods  on  heavy  wing,  cawing  gruffly  as 
he  goes,  without  apparent  reason  unless  it 
be  to  express  his  troubled  and  dissatisfied 
state  of  mind.  Perhaps  he  is  thinking  of  the 
hard  times  ahead — though  heaven  knows 
times  are  always  hard  enough  for  a  hearty 
eater,  with  such  thievish  and  forbidden 
tastes  as  his!  No  doubt  his  stomach  is 
empty  now,  and  he  knows  not  where  nor 
how  to  fill  it. 

Strangely  enough,  the  almost  domesti- 
cated robin,  that  has  nested  in  the  apple-tree 
164 


The  Autumn  Wood-Path 

close  to  the  house,  and  cheered  us  all  sum- 
mer with  its  flutelike  morning  and  evening 
song,  becomes  in  October  one  of  the  wildest 
and  most  suspicious  of  birds,  retiring  to  the 
deep  woods  and  adding  its  sharp,  suspicious, 
chirping  cry  to  that  of  the  blue  jay  and  the 
crow.  I  have  seen  whole  flocks  of  robins, 
in  October,  miles  within  the  heart  of  an  up- 
land forest,  where  you  scarcely  ever  find 
them  during  the  spring  and  summer.  Shy, 
suspicious  creatures  they  are  now,  taking 
to  wing  with  great  swiftness  and  clamor  be- 
fore the  rambler  gets  even  within  gun-range 
of  them — as  if  he  would  care  to  shoot  such 
plebeian  game  if  he  could !  But,  like  bobo- 
link, who  becomes  the  pot-hunter's  reed- 
bird  in  winter,  robin  seems  to  aspire  to  the 
dignity  of  becoming  a  game-bird  as  soon  as 
the  shooting-season  opens,  doubtless  quite 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  nearly  all  our 
Northern  States  by  a  special  law  protect  his 
russet  body  from  destruction. 

As  the  wood-path  climbs  a  dry,  sun-baked 
ridge,  we  come  to  a  succession  of  little  round 
hollows,  shallow  pits  in  the  powdery  loam, 
where  that  genuine  and  royal  game-bird,  the 
ruffed  grouse,  has  lain,  like  a  roadside  hen, 
165 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

dusting  itself  in  the  sun.  A  pretty  sight  it 
must  have  been — the  large,  grayish  bird, 
with  its  alert,  trim  head  and  bright  eyes 
always  watchful,  tossing  the  dust  with  vig- 
orous flirts  of  the  wing  far  up  over  its  back, 
and  nestling  and  shifting  round  and  round  in 
the  warm  hollow.  I  have  seen  hundreds  of 
such  dusting-holes  in  my  rambles  through 
the  woods,  but  only  once  have  I  beheld  a 
ruffed  grouse  actually  dusting  itself  as  I 
have  described.  It  was  at  noon  of  a  hot 
September  day,  and  I  was  lying  in  the  shade 
beside  the  wood-path,  when  the  cautious  bird 
stole  out  for  its  midday  bath.  It  was  a  hen 
grouse,  trim  in  body  and  graceful  and  quick 
in  every  movement.  I  lay  motionless,  watch- 
ing her,  for  nearly  fifteen  minutes.  Then  a 
dog  barked  at  the  foot  of  the  ridge,  and  the 
grouse  was  gone  in  an  instant,  leaving  a  few 
soft  feathers  swirling  down  into  the  dust. 
How  large  a  part  of  the  life  and  interest 
of  the  woods  centers  in  the  birds !  Every 
true  nature-lover  speaks  of  them  first  and 
chiefly  when  describing  his  outdoor  ram- 
bles. Yet  there  are  other  creatures  and 
things  that  win  the  attention  of  a  rambler 
by  the  autumn  wood-path.  He  notes  the 
166 


The  Autumn  Wood-Path 

nibbled  shoots  of  birch  and  alder,  where  the 
rabbit  or  hare  has  browsed  them  by  the 
light  of  the  moon;  for  these  little  animals 
are  both  night-feeders,  shy,  big-eyed  and 
big-eared,  secretive  and  cautious,  as  be- 
hooves such  tender,  toothsome  creatures,  the 
chosen  prey  of  man  and  beast. 

Here,  where  the  path  dips  down  beside 
the  brook,  is  a  wet,  flat  stone,  just  aban- 
doned by  a  muskrat  (I  heard  his  splash  as 
I  drew  near)  that  was  nibbling  a  wild  par- 
snip. It  would  be  useless  to  look  for  his 
hole,  for  it  is  well  hidden  under  the  bank, 
beneath  the  surface  of  the  water,  and  slants 
upward  to  some  dry,  grass-lined  nest  above 
the  water-line. 

A  little  farther  along  I  catch  a  glimpse  of 
the  dark,  slim,  lithe  body  of  an  otter,  glid- 
ing rapidly  over  the  stones  to  a  deep  pool,  in 
which  he  vanishes.  No  doubt  he  has  been 
fishing,  in  his  quiet,  patient  way,  lying  by 
the  water's  edge,  ready  to  pounce  with  claws 
and  teeth  upon  any  unwary  trout  or  minnow 
that  ventured  too  near. 

It  is  curious  how  averse  a  fox  is  to  wet- 
ting even  the  soles  of  his  dainty  feet!  I 
was  walking  along  this  same  brook,  one  Oc- 
167 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

tober  afternoon — this  time  with  gun  in  hand 
— when  a  fox  came  trotting  unsuspiciously 
down  to  the  tip  of  a  little  point  of  land 
around  which  the  brook  bent  like  a  silver 
triangle.  He  looked  up  and  saw  me  as  I 
was  creeping  down  towards  the  base  of  the 
triangle,  though  still  not  quite  within  gun- 
range.  The  fox  might  easily  have  escaped 
me  and  saved  his  life  by  plunging  through 
the  shallow  brook  and  up  the  opposite  bank 
into  a  hemlock  thicket.  But  rather  than  wet 
his  feet  he  turned  and  came  scurrying  back 
along  the  water's  edge,  as  far  from  me  as  he 
could  get.  It  was  a  fatal  bit  of  squeamish- 
ness  on  his  part,  for  it  brought  the  hand- 
some fellow  within  range  of  my  gun.  I 
have  a  rug  of  his  skin  under  my  desk  now. 
I  would  like  to  say  a  word  about  the  flow- 
ers one  may  find,  even  in  October,  along  the 
wood-path  and  scattered  over  the  upland 
pastures;  but  already  my  chapter  grows 
overlong.  I  may  simply  name  a  few  of  the 
blossoms  I  picked,  last  fall,  between  the  ist 
of  October  and  the  5th  of  November — 
fringed  gentian,  purple  aster,  golden-rod, 
blue  toad-flax,  fall  dandelion,  Canada  violet, 
spurge,  common  yarrow,  white  alder,  trum- 
168 


The  Autumn  Wood-Path 

pet-weed,  witch-hazel,  moth  mullein,  knot- 
weed,  thorn-apple,  and  ladies'  tresses. 

The  autumn  wood-path,  if  you  follow  it 
far  enough  up  the  hills,  comes  to  an  end  in 
a  mountain  pasture,  surrounded  by  a  tum- 
ble-down rail  fence.  And  here  we  may  fitly 
leave  it,  swallowed  up  in  brakes  and  rasp- 
berry bushes.  Nobody  now  living  knows 
where  it  originally  ended — perhaps  at  some 
old-time  logging-camp  far  up  beneath  the 
shadow  of  Tahawus's  peak,  or  perhaps  it 
was  part  of  an  Indian  trail  that  never 
stopped  until  it  had  connected  Albany  with 
the  Algonkin  villages  on  Lake  Champlain. 


169 


UP  STERLING 

IT  was  six  o'clock  of  a  clear  October 
morning,  succeeding  three  days  of  rain, 
when  I  set  forth,  "as  the  crow  flies,"  for 
Sterling  Mountain.  I  had  long  planned 
making  a  direct  assault  upon  the  giant, 
instead  of  going  six  miles  around  by  way 
of  "White  Rocks"  for  the  benefit  of  a  doubt- 
ful trail.  The  thickly  wooded  mountain 
towered  before  me,  seemingly  less  than 
three  miles  away,  on  the  other  side  of  the 
narrow  valley.  I  thought  I  could  easily 
make  the  base  of  it  in  an  hour,  or  an  hour 
and  a  half  at  the  longest.  But  I  failed  to 
take  into  my  reckoning  the  deceptiveness 
of  distance  when  one  is  looking  across  coun- 
try to  the  hills.  Especially  on  a  clear  day 
the  mountains  look  as  if  you  could  touch 
them,  if  your  arm  were  only  a  little 
longer.  You  laugh  at  the  notion  of  spend- 
ing all  day  in  making  a  trip  by  carriage  to 
this  or  that  locally  famous  hill.  You  think 
you  could  do  it,  afoot,  between  supper  and 
170 


Up  Sterling 

bedtime.  But  you  generally  live  to  try  it 
and  be  undeceived. 

My  plan  was  to  cross  the  river  by  a  cer- 
tain fallen  tree  which  I  had  discovered  on 
my  last  fishing  excursion,  strike  directly 
over  the  wooded  ridge  beyond,  then  cross 
the  great  clearing  visible  from  the  village 
cemetery,  and  plunge  into  the  wide  fringe 
of  woods  around  Sterling's  base.  From 
that  point  I  would  trust  for  direction  to  the 
rise  of  the  land  and  my  compass.  When  I 
reached  the  mountain  itself,  it  would  simply 
be  a  scramble,  I  admitted,  for  it  was  evident, 
even  from  a  distance,  that  Sterling  on  the 
northeast  side  was  decidedly  "straight  up." 

The  tree  that  bridged  the  river  for  me 
had  been  blown  down  during  a  September 
thunderstorm.  It  lay  directly  across  the 
channel,  leaving  about  twenty  feet  of  shal- 
low water  to  be  waded,  after  one  was  com- 
pelled to  slide  from  its  tapering  trunk  into 
the  stream.  However,  I  count  no  mountain 
excursion  complete — or  for  that  matter  pos- 
sible— without  wet  feet,  and  was  perfectly 
willing  to  comply  with  this  condition  at  the 
outset. 

Scarcely  had  I  crossed  the  river  when  my 
171 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

difficulties  and  perplexities  began.  The 
wooded  ridge,  which  from  the  easy  outlook 
of  the  village  seemed  like  the  mere  threshold 
of  my  enterprise,  proved  to  be  a  mountain 
of  some  consequence  in  itself,  steep,  tangled, 
and  pathless.  I  was  more  than  an  hour  in 
toiling  up  over  its  declivity  and  getting 
down  into  the  woods  on  the  other  side.  And 
even  then  I  should  have  lost  my  way,  had 
I  not  stopped  to  consult  my  compass  every 
few  minutes.  For  the  first  time  I  began  to 
reflect  on  the  wisdom  of  that  whimsical  but 
entirely  credible  saying,  "The  longest  way 
around  is  the  shortest  way  there." 

However,  I  knew  that,  if  I  kept  deter- 
minedly westward,  I  must  come  out  at 
length  in  the  big  clearing  visible  from  the 
slopes  on  the  other  side  of  the  river.  Once 
there,  I  should  be  in  sight  of  the  mountain 
again,  and  able  to  get  my  bearings.  So  I 
plunged  on,  compass  in  hand,  wading 
through  mossy  bog-holes,  climbing  logs, 
battling  with  thickets,  till  I  heard,  far  ahead, 
the  welcome  sound  of  a  cow-bell.  That 
meant  either  a  clearing  or  a  path  to  a  clear- 
ing, and  I  struck  out  with  new  courage 
in  the  direction  of  the  sound.  Presently  the 
172 


Up  Sterling 

woods  lighted  up  ahead  in  that  peculiar 
way  which  betokens  open  country  beyond. 
It  is  wonderful  how  far  some  practiced  eyes 
can  detect  this  dawning  of  the  open,  as  it 
were.  I  have  known  woodsmen  who  could 
"intuit"  a  clearing  half  a  mile  away ;  and  if 
you  ask  them  how,  they  will  say,  "Don't 
you  see  how  the  woods  lighten  up  in  that 
direction  ?" 

Fortunately,  the  cow  with  the  bell  kept 
moving,  so  that  by  following  the  jangle  I 
soon  came  where  she  was  feeding  in  a 
little  glade  by  a  brook.  From  here  there 
was  a  well-defined  cow-path  leading  west- 
ward. I  struck  into  it,  and  in  ten  min- 
utes reached  the  big  clearing  which  I  had 
seen  from  the  village.  The  clearing  con- 
tained, perhaps,  a  dozen  upland  farms. 
Small  buildings  were  scattered  here  and 
there,  and  I  could  see  a  road  climbing  the 
western  slope.  It  was  a  remote  settlement, 
but  thrifty,  I  thought,  as  I  marked  the 
barns  bursting  with  hay,  the  sheep  and  cat- 
tle scattered  over  the  fields,  and  the  big 
squares  of  harvested  grain,  showing,  by  the 
semi-circles  in  the  stubble,  that  it  had  been 
mowed  with  the  old-fashioned  "cradle." 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

Sterling  loomed  directly  ahead  of  me,  its 
long  ridge  bristling  with  pines  and  firs,  and 
its  knoblike  peak  brushed  by  fleecy  clouds. 
I  debated  whether,  even  now,  I  would  not 
swerve  to  the  left  and  make  for  the  "White 
Rocks/'  where  there  is  said  to  be  a  faint 
trail  leading  up  the  ridge  to  the  peak.  How- 
ever, the  thirst  for  adventure  was  not  yet 
quite  abated  in  me,  and  I  decided  to  keep 
on  as  I  had  planned,  straight  up  the  pathless 
side  of  the  mountain. 

I  followed  the  road  across  the  clearing, 
until  I  reached  the  point  where  I  thought 
I  ought  to  strike  into  the  woods.  Then, 
leaving  the  last  trace  of  civilization  behind 
me,  I  took  a  final  "range"  of  the  peak  with 
my  compass,  and  plunged  into  Sterling's 
broad  belt  of  forest. 

For  the  first  mile  or  two  the  ascent  was 
gradual  and  easy.  The  woods,  too,  were 
more  open  and  free  from  bogs  and  tangles. 
I  walked  with  freedom,  and  felt  a  certain 
exhilaration  in  the  relief  from  little  physical 
worries  and  annoyances.  The  morning  was 
rapidly  passing,  and  I  began  to  feel  a  sen- 
sation of  agreeable  vacuity  under  the  belt — 


Up  Sterling 

agreeable  because  of  the  consciousness  of 
an  excellent  lunch  in  my  haversack,  pre- 
pared by  loving  hands  for  just  such  an 
emergency. 

An  ice-cold  brook,  trickling  over  a  ledge, 
decided  the  matter,  and,  though  it  was  but 
eleven  o'clock,  I  flung  off  my  haversack 
and  sank  down  on  the  mossy  bank  at  the 
foot  of  the  ledge  to  eat  my  lunch.  That 
was  a  royal  half-hour!  With  my  drink- 
ing cup  at  my  side,  replenished  often  from 
the  crystal  cold  brook,  and  my  dainty  but 
abundant  lunch  spread  out  on  a  snowy  nap- 
kin before  me,  I  reclined  at  ease,  refreshing 
my  inner  man  of  the  flesh  with  viands  fit 
for  a  king,  and  my  still  more  inner  man  of 
the  spirit  with  the  beauty  of  that  unspoiled 
mountain  forest,  the  low  twittering  of  Oc- 
tober birds,  and  the  silvery  tinkle  of  the 
brook. 

While  I  was  eating,  a  red  squirrel  came 
hitching  down  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  and 
stopped  on  the  stub  of  a  broken  limb  to 
bark  and  scold  at  me.  He  was  scarcely 
six  feet  away,  and  I  playfully  threw  a  bit 
of  egg-shell  at  him.  He  disappeared  with 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

chattering  indignation,  but  presently  re- 
turned and  carried  away  the  egg-shell  in 
his  mouth. 

Up  and  forward  again.  And  now  began 
the  real  labor  and  difficulty  of  my  enter- 
prise. The  ground  began  to  rise  abruptly. 
Ledges  confronted  me,  some  of  which  I 
had  to  skirt  for  a  considerable  distance  be- 
fore I  was  able  to  climb  them.  I  soon 
realized  that  I  was  on  the  steep  north- 
eastern flank  of  Sterling,  with  a  hard 
climb  between  me  and  the  ridge  that  led 
up  to  the  peak.  But  there  was  encourage- 
ment in  the  thought  that  I  was  fairly 
grappling  with  the  mountain  at  last,  that 
I  had  reached  it  by  the  air-line  route,  as  I 
planned,  and  was  adventuring  where,  per- 
haps, no  white  man's  foot  had  ever  trod 
before. 

The  character  of  the  woods  changed,  as 
I  progressed,  from  an  admixture  of  hard 
and  soft  wood  trees  to  wholly  evergreen. 
Somber,  thick-growing  firs,  pines,  and 
cedars  shut  out  the  light  and  hemmed  me 
in  more  and  more  closely.  These  were  the 
trees  which,  as  I  had  noticed  from  a  dis- 
176 


Up  Sterling 

tance,  gave  the  slope  and  ridge  of  Sterling 
such  a  dark  and  bristling  aspect.  They 
were  not  large — not  more  than  thirty  feet 
high  on  the  average — but  sturdy,  large- 
limbed,  and  thickly  set,  good  types  of  moun- 
tain trees,  which  always  give  the  impression 
of  tremendous  vitality  and  endurance — 
rooted  among  the  everlasting  rocks  for  more 
than  a  century's  vigorous  life. 

On  and  up  I  clambered,  sometimes 
squeezing  through  a  narrow  cleft  in  a  ledge 
and  scaling  the  treacherous  pathway  of 
broken  rock  within,  sometimes  drawing  my- 
self up  a  steep  slope  by  overhanging  boughs 
or  shrubs,  sometimes  digging  toes  and  fin- 
gers into  the  mold  threaded  with  rootlets 
of  underbrush,  and  struggling  on  hands  and 
knees  up  to  a  vantage-ground  where  I  could 
rest  and  catch  my  breath.  I  was  thankful 
that  it  was  too  late  in  the  season  for  tor- 
menting mosquitoes  and  black  flies,  though 
the  aggravating,  invisible  midges  still  tor- 
tured me  with  their  burning  bites.  How- 
ever, these  pests  do  not  drive  one  crazy, 
like  a  swarm  of  shrill-humming  mosquitoes. 
If  I  had  tried  to  scale  that  tangled  slope  in 

12  177 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

early  July,  I  verily  believe  I  should  have 
perished  from  the  venom  of  the  insects  that 
abound  in  such  spots. 

It  was  just  half-past  two  o'clock  when 
I  finally  dragged  myself  up  to  the  top  of 
the  ridge,  utterly  exhausted  and  out  of 
breath.  It  was  the  hardest  climb  I  had 
ever  attempted,  and  I  promised  myself  that 
I  should  not  undertake  another  of  the  same 
kind  very  soon.  There  is  sufficient  satis- 
faction in  doing  such  a  thing  once  in  an 
active  life,  I  think.  I  could  have  gone 
around  by  the  "White  Rocks"  and  up  the 
trail,  with  a  mere  fraction  of  the  labor  of 
my  more  direct  route.  "Choose  the  long 
way  around,"  is  a  pretty  good  motto  for 
mountain-climbers. 

It  was  easy  enough  following  the  ridge 
up  to  the  peak  of  the  mountain.  There 
was  a  faint  path  leading  in  and  out  among 
the  rocks  and  the  sinewy  trunks  of  the 
stunted  trees.  Wonderful — is  it  not? — how 
a  disused  path  will  persist  for  decades  in 
these  mountain  woods !  On  the  summit 
of  Sterling  I  lay  down  for  an  hour's  rest, 
with  my  back  against  a  rock.  The  view 
was  grand,  the  rest  delicious!  I  do  not 
178 


Up  Sterling 

know  which  of  them  was  better  worth  my  ex- 
penditure of  time  and  strength.  On  the  one 
side  the  White  Mountains,  on  the  other  side 
the  neighboring  peaks  of  the  Green  Moun- 
tain range  nearer  at  hand — all  lay  spread 
before  me  like  a  gigantic  map.  The  air  was 
clear  as  a  bell.  I  could  see,  with  my  field- 
glass,  to  the  utmost  limit  of  unobstructed 
human  vision.  It  was  a  grand  sweep  for  a 
lonely,  pigmy  human  being,  with  the  sense  of 
his  own  littleness  and  weakness  emphasized 
by  aching  legs  and  back.  But  there  I  was, 
and  there  was  the  glorious  world  beneath 
my  feet,  and  the  unsearchable  sky  above  my 
head.  I  forgot  that  I  was  tired;  I  forgot 
that  there  was  a  nine-mile  homeward  tramp 
awaiting  me.  For  an  hour  I  lay  on  the  peak 
of  Sterling,  in  exaltation  of  spirit  and  body. 
Then  I  got  up,  gave  a  last  look  north,  east, 
west,  and  south,  rubbed  myself,  and  walked 
slowly  down  the  ridge  toward  the  "White 
Rocks." 


179 


GETTING  READY  FOR  WINTER 

THERE  are  two  periods  in  the  rounding 
of  the  year,  in  temperate  zones,  that  are  dis- 
tinctively periods  of  preparation.  One  of 
them  comes  in  the  early  spring,  and  may  be 
called  the  period  of  preparation  for  fecund- 
ity, or  reproduction.  The  other  comes  in 
the  late  fall,  and  is  the  period  of  preparation 
for  struggle  with  environment.  This  an- 
nual struggle  is  a  serious  and  strenuous 
necessity,  and  nature  approaches  it  with 
evident  reluctance  and  soberness  of  spirit 
and  demeanor.  There  is  something  more 
than  pure  imagination  or  reflected  human 
sentiment  in  the  impression  we  get,  in  the 
late  fall,  of  nature's  all-enveloping  sadness. 
Bryant  only  put  into  enduring  words  the 
actual  mood  of  the  outdoor  world  in  No- 
vember, when  he  sang, — 

"The  melancholy  days  are  come,  the  saddest  of 
the  year." 

Nature  confronts  her  long,  hard  struggle 
180 


Getting  Ready  for  Winter 

with  the  fierce  storms  and  deadly  cold  of 
winter  bravely,  yet  soberly.  She  sets  dili- 
gently about  making  her  preparations,  yet 
the  face  she  bends  over  her  task  is  anxious 
and  clouded.  The  least  imaginative  and 
least  sensitive  person  can  not  fail  to  detect 
the  sadness  of  the  November  atmosphere. 
It  is  as  plain  as  the  expression  of  any  human 
face.  You  may  see  it  stamped  upon  the 
skies,  and  the  trees,  and  the  waters,  and  the 
dun  stretches  of  withered  pasture.  You 
may  feel  it  in  the  glooming  hush  of  the  air, 
these  short,  overcast  days,  or  hear  it  in  the 
moan  of  tree-tossing  winds,  or  the  sobbing 
of  cold  rains  in  the  night.  No,  it  is  not 
man's  mood  that  nature  reflects  in  the  twi- 
light months  of  the  year ;  for  man  is  not  so 
depressed ;  he  has  no  such  strenuous  strug- 
gle to  make  with  winter  cold,  science  and 
art  having  come  to  his  assistance,  in  ad- 
dition to  all  the  resources  of  nature  with 
which  he  started  out.  But  dear  old  Mother 
Earth  must  still  fight  her  environment  with 
savage  and  primitive  desperation.  No  won- 
der she  is  depressed,  as  she  sits  patching  her 
familiar  suit  of  armor  once  more.  It  is  her 
mood  that  man  reflects  when  he  goes  abroad 
181 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

for  his  rambles  over  frozen  November 
ground. 

And  yet,  though  nature  dreads  the  win- 
ter struggle,  she  knows  that  it  is  wholesome 
for  her.  She  knows,  in  the  main,  it  will 
be  a  victory  for  her  most  vital  forms;  and 
that  whatever  perishes  is  simply  so  much 
of  the  weaker  stuff  of  the  physical  creation 
tested,  condemned,  and  swept  out  of  the 
path  of  higher  evolution.  Natural  selection 
is  cruel  to  the  isolated  unit,  but  how  kind 
to  the  associated  whole !  How  it  raises  the 
average  of  all  life,  by  providing  for  the 
unit-to-be  a  more  vigorous  parentage  and 
a  less  vitiated  environment!  Yes,  the  hard 
places  are  wholesome  places,  in  the  end,  for 
all  life,  physical  or  spiritual.  God  has  writ- 
ten this  fact  very  plainly  throughout  his  uni- 
verse, and  he  holds  to  it  with  an  inflexible 
love  that  men  sometimes  call  Fate.  Yet  I 
think  we  shall  not  always  spell  Fate  with 
the  same  four  letters. 

It  is  beautiful,  to  me,  to  note  the  thor- 
oughness, fidelity,  and  exquisite  adaptation 
of  means  to  end  with  which  nature,  in  our 
short  Northern  clime,  makes  her  preparation 
for  winter.  She  is  bound  to  save,  at  any 
182 


Getting  Ready  for  Winter 

rate,  all  physical  life  worth  saving,  and  firm 
in  her  faith  that  she  can  do  so.  Observe, 
for  instance,  how  she  safeguards  the  trees. 
First,  she  strips  them  of  encumbering  and 
storm-holding  foliage  —  that  which  pros- 
trates or  snaps  so  many  noble  trees  in  sum- 
mer hurricanes.  Then  she  gradually  stops 
the  flow  of  the  sap,  so  that  as  the  cold  in- 
creases the  veins  of  the  tree  are  drained, 
and  it  presents  no  point  of  attack  for  frost. 
At  the  same  time  the  soft  outer  layer  of 
new  wood,  just  underneath  the  bark,  hard- 
ens and  forms,  as  it  were,  an  inner  coat  of 
mail,  a  cuirass,  to  stop  the  spear  of  the  cold. 
When  you  hear  a  tree  crack  in  a  sharp  win- 
ter night,  you  may  know  that  something  has 
obstructed  the  complete  draining  of  sap  from 
its  veins,  and  a  drop  or  two  somewhere  has 
frozen  and  split  the  restraining  fibers. 

But  nature  does  not  stop  with  the  faith- 
ful safeguarding  of  the  parent  life  of  the 
tree.  She  makes  armor  and  clothing  for 
its  embryonic  buds  as  well — thick,  hard, 
overlapping  scales  (from  which  men  got 
their  first  notion  of  armor,  perhaps),  a 
glutinous,  waxy  exudation,  and  sometimes 
an  inner  lining  of  woolly  down,  like  a 
183 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

mouse's  fur.  Thus  does  nature  trebly  swad- 
dle the  young  life  which  is  the  hope  of  the 
future. 

Turning  now  to  the  animal  creation,  note 
how  nature  doubles  the  coats  of  her  chil- 
dren as  winter  draws  near.  The  fur-bearers, 
in  addition  to  the  longer  hairs  of  their  jack- 
ets, produce  a  new  and  shorter  and  softer 
growth  of  hair  lying  close  to  the  skin — a 
sort  of  undershirt,  re-enforcing  their  heavier 
outer  garment.  With  many  of  them,  also, 
the  color  of  the  fur  changes  from  brown  or 
red  to  white,  to  correspond  with  the  snow, 
and  render  them  less  conspicuous  objects  of 
prey.  White,  also,  is  a  poorer  conductor 
and  dissipater  of  bodily  heat  than  darker 
colors.  Birds  receive  an  inner  coat  of  down 
on  the  approach  of  winter,  and  other 
changes  take  place  in  such  of  them  as  never 
migrate.  The  ruffed  grouse,  for  instance, 
undergoes  a  broadening  and  indenting  of 
the  toes,  by  which  it  is  enabled  to  walk  on 
the  snowdrifts  and  dig  away  the  snow  in 
search  of  food. 

An  almost  unlimited  number  of  curious 
and  interesting  adaptations  of  this  sort 
might  be  cited,  to  show  how  carefully  and 
184 


Getting  Ready  for  Winter 

thoroughly  nature  prepares  her  children 
for  their  winter  struggle.  But  this  is  a 
study  to  which  I  must  refer  my  readers  as 
a  charming  employment  for  fall  and  early 
winter  rambles.  The  observing  eye  will 
find  instances  of  this  winter  dressmaking, 
or  tailoring,  or  armoring,  on  every  hand. 
Nature  will  be  found  as  busy  in  November 
as  in  April — perhaps  more  so,  if  we  could 
count  all  her  shifts  and  stitches.  She  has 
such  a  large  family  to  tide  over  the  winter ! 
And,  like  all  children,  some  of  them  will  be 
careless  and  heedless  in  spite  of  all  she 
can  do. 


185 


BEYOND  THE  SNOW-PATH 

HERE  the  hard-trodden  snow-path  of  the 
woodchoppers  comes  to  an  end,  in  a  clear- 
ing littered  with  chips  and  surrounded  by 
piles  of  brush  and  cordwood.  Beyond,  the 
snow  lies  deep  and  unbroken.  Striking  into 
the  wintry  woods  from  here  would  be  like 
taking  a  cold  plunge-bath.  I  stand,  unde- 
cided, in  a  little  forest  arena  or  circus, 
where  the  woodchoppers  have  stamped  the 
snow  while  eating  their  frozen  lunch.  I 
have  no  snowshoes — indeed,  I  may  as  well 
confess  that  no  amount  of  practice  has  en- 
abled me  to  make  any  practical  use  of  them. 
Their  broad,  snow-gathering  blades  have 
always  proved,  to  me,  an  encumbrance  and 
stumbling-block.  And  yet  it  is  enough  to 
make  a  man  weaken,  at  the  outset,  across 
the  hips  and  in  the  small  of  the  back,  to 
think  of  wallowing  without  snowshoes 
through  two  feet  and  a  half  of  soft  snow 
on  the  level.  What  shall  I  do?  Turn 
around  and  go  back  to  the  beaten  highway  ? 
1 86 


Beyond  the  Snow-Path 

And  thereby  forego  all  possibility  of  dis- 
covering the  hidden  secrets  of  the  winter 
woods?  No!  I  will  make  the  plunge.  I 
will  dare  so  great  a  labor.  Though  I  may 
be  able  to  penetrate  the  woods  but  a  short 
distance  beyond  the  clearing,  I  may  find, 
in  that  trackless,  undiscovered  country,  all, 
and  more,  than  I  seek.  It  is  worth  trying, 
anyway. 

I  strap  my  trousers  tightly  inside  my 
high  overshoes,  and  stride  out  into  the  white 
waste,  sinking  at  every  step  above  my  knees. 
It  is  almost  as  hard  work  as  wading  through 
so  much  water,  and  the  unnatural  motion  of 
throwing  the  knee  so  high,  and  lifting  the 
body  upward  and  forward,  when  the  foot 
finds  a  resting-place,  soon  makes  the  back 
and  thigh  muscles  ache  desperately.  I  have 
known  hunters  who  could  keep  up  this  rock- 
ing, camel-like  motion  all  day,  following  a 
deer's  or  bear's  trail,  when  the  brushy, 
tangled  nature  of  the  country  rendered  the 
use  of  snowshoes  both  troublesome  and  dan- 
gerous to  a  man  with  a  loaded  gun  in  his 
hand.  All  physical  feats,  at  least,  seem  to 
become  possible  by  long  practice  and  grad- 
ual induration  of  the  muscular  system — 
187 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

even  digging  all  day  in  a  ditch,  as  Irish 
laborers  do.  But  the  sedentary  man  who 
tries  his  hand,  or  foot,  at  them  can  scarcely 
comprehend  how  muscles  become  so  tireless. 
I  am  especially  desirous,  on  this  crisp, 
midwinter  day,  to  hear  what  songs  or  chirps 
we  may  expect  from  the  few  forest  birds 
that  linger  with  us,  in  these  Northern  States, 
throughout  the  cold  weather.  The  piece  of 
woodland  I  am  traversing  is  well  sheltered 
on  three  sides  by  hills,  and  is  chiefly  com- 
posed of  thick  clumps  of  evergreens,  inter- 
spersed with  more  open  patches  of  birch, 
beech,  and  maple,  forming  in  all  an  excel- 
lent winter  resort  for  the  birds.  And  yet 
one  might  pass  by  such  a  piece  of  woodland, 
on  a  traveled  road,  and  hear  not  a  single 
bird-voice,  though  there  were  numbers  of 
birds  sheltered  among  the  evergreens.  My 
experience  has  been  that  these  winter  birds, 
as  a  rule,  have  to  be  disturbed  or  startled 
in  some  way  before  they  will  make  their 
presence  known  by  any  vocal  sign.  None 
of  them  has  a  sustained  song,  and  few  utter 
more  than  a  dry,  pinched  chirp  or  two,  or 
a  raucous  scream,  as  the  blue  jay,  when  dis- 
turbed in  their  winter  retreats.  One  or  two 
188 


Beyond  the  Snow-Path 

species,  however,  do  give  utterance  to  a  brief 
musical  phrase,  the  black-cap  titmouse,  or 
chickadee,  for  instance;  and,  more  notably 
still,  the  winter  wren,  though  the  latter  bird 
is  comparatively  rare,  and  its  exquisite  and 
copious  winter  song  is  not  often  heard  north 
of  Pennsylvania  or  Southern  New  York. 

As  I  flounder  along  through  the  snow, 
I  am  soon  greeted  by  five  or  six  lively  chick- 
adees, that  dart  out  of  the  evergreens  with 
loud  chirps,  one  after  another,  as  if  in  sport- 
ive pursuit.  Then  the  whole  flock  flits  along 
from  clump  to  clump  of  hemlocks,  attending 
me  as  if  for  company's  sake,  and  all  the 
while  keeping  up  that  cheery  three-syllabled 
chirping  phrase  by  way  of  conversation. 
An  old  hunter  told  me  that,  if  you  will  fol- 
low these  birds,  they  will  lead  you  to  the 
spot  where  some  ruffed  grouse  is  hiding  in 
the  thicket  or  the  snow,  and  so  give  you  a 
shot  at  game  which  you  might  otherwise 
have  failed  to  find.  I  suspect,  however,  that 
the  old  hunter's  experience  was  a  mere  mat- 
ter of  chance  or  coincidence,  having  no  more 
basis  of  certainty  than  this,  that  chickadees 
and  ruffed  grouse  frequent  the  same  kind  of 
cover  in  winter — the  thickest  evergreen 
189 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

clumps — and  in  following  the  smaller  bird 
you  are  actually  led  to  the  best  spots  for 
discovering  the  larger,  if  there  are  any 
ruff ed  grouse  thereabouts. 

Yonder  is  a  blue  jay,  screaming  at  me 
from  the  lower  branches  of  a  birch,  at  a 
safe  distance,  even  supposing  I  had  a  gun 
concealed  anywhere  about  me.  I  fancy  that 
there  is  a  note  of  scornful  amusement,  as 
well  as  petulant  query,  in  his  scolding  cry, 
as  if  it  really  tickled  him  to  see  a  man  so 
foot-tied  and  absurdly  hampered,  toiling  and 
panting  through  the  woods,  when  the  roads 
of  the  air  were  as  free  and  smooth  and  de- 
lightful as  ever.  His  laugh  has  the  ring 
of  superiority  in  it,  but  no  kindly  good 
humor.  Now  he  is  off,  in  full  retreat,  show- 
ing the  white  bars  in  his  tail,  and  taunting 
all  the  while,  like  a  vituperative  but  cow- 
ardly cur.  I  like  the  bluejay  least  of  all  our 
birds,  summer  or  winter.  He  is  a  scolder 
from  first  to  last,  always  imputing  the  worst 
motives  to  every  human  being  who  ven- 
tures into  the  woods,  and  proclaiming  his 
suspicions  loudly  to  the  whole  feathered 
community. 

Soon  after  bidding  the  jay  good  riddance, 
190 


Beyond  the  Snow-Path 

I  fall  in  with  that  silent  but  beautiful  winter 
resident  of  our  Northern  woods,  the  wax- 
wing,  or  cedar-bird.  The  tiny  red  knobs 
at  the  extremities  of  the  wing  and  tail  feath- 
ers of  this  bird  suggest  umbrella-ribs  with 
their  tips  covered  with  sealing-wax.  Wax- 
wing,  so  far  as  my  experience  goes,  is  quite 
dumb,  a  sort  of  Quaker  bird  in  the  woods, 
still  waiting  to  be  moved  by  the  spirit  of 
song.  He  has  this  peculiarity,  which,  I 
think,  belongs  to  no  other  bird,  that  he  can 
adjust  his  stomach  at  will  to  either  a  purely 
vegetable  or  meat  diet.  When  the  cherries 
ripen,  he  lives  on  nothing  else  so  long  as 
he  can  get  them ;  but  the  rest  of  the  time  his 
food  is  entirely  insectivorous. 

While  I  am  resting  on  the  top  of  an  old 
rail  fence  that  runs  through  the  heart  of  the 
woods,  a  white-breasted  nuthatch  bobs 
around  the  trunk  of  a  pine-tree,  scarcely  six 
feet  away,  and,  utterly  oblivious  or  careless 
of  my  presence,  runs  diligently  up  and  down 
the  rough  bark,  seeking  for  larvae  or  for 
hibernating  insects.  The  nuthatch  is  the 
most  insouciant,  absorbed,  and  heedless  of 
danger  of  all  the  feathered  tribe.  Either  he 
does  not  fear  man,  or  else  he  is  so  utterly 
191 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

taken  up  with  the  serious  business  of  life 
as  to  be  quite  unaware  of  his  presence.  I 
have  almost  taken  them  in  my  hand  from 
the  trunks  of  trees,  when  they  were  search- 
ing for  food.  Their  chirp  is  a  curious, 
amusing,  dry  sort  of  soliloquy,  that  reminds 
me  of  a  very  busy  person  talking  to  himself 
while  at  work,  or  singing  a  low,  monotonous 
snatch  of  song.  The  bird's  note  is  flat  and 
metallic,  like  a  diminutive  duck-quack.  I 
can  not  help  smiling  whenever  I  run  across 
the  unconscious,  bustling  little  body,  so 
loquaciously  intent  upon  its  perennial  house- 
cleaning. 

While  slowly  making  my  way  up  a  low 
ridge,  covered  with  nothing  but  pines — and 
very  good  ones,  too,  considering  how  this 
tree  is  harried  by  the  woodcutters — I  sur- 
prise a  bird  that  I  little  thought  to  find  in 
this  section,  though  it  is  said  to  be  plentiful 
during  the  winter  in  Canada — the  pine  finch 
or  pine  siskin,  an  olive-backed  bird,  with  a 
breast  of  smoky,  dingy  white.  I  get  but 
a  glimpse  of  it,  as  it  pauses  for  a  moment 
on  a  pine  branch  overhead,  and  then  flies 
silently  and  swiftly  away.  It  has  a  song 
during  the  breeding  season,  I  believe — or 
192 


Beyond  the  Snow-Path 

what  passes  for  a  song— but  is  silent  during 
the  rest  of  the  year. 

A  pine  grossbeak  catches  my  eye,  as  I 
begin  to  swing  around  in  a  circle  toward 
the  woodchopper's  path  again,  and  soon 
afterward  a  genuine  robin  redbreast,  bravely 
wintering  near  his  summer  nest.  The  hon- 
est chatter  of  my  orchard  friend  sounds  most 
grateful  to  the  ear,  though  he  is  terribly 
suspicious  of  me  now,  and  scurries  away 
the  moment  I  come  in  sight  of  him.  He 
too  would  have  remained  entirely  silent,  this 
sharp  winter  day,  had  I  not  chanced  to  dis- 
turb him. 

The  soft,  plaintive  chirp  of  a  kinglet  ar- 
rests my  attention,  but  I  try  in  vain  to  dis- 
cover the  bird,  which  is  doubtless  well  hid- 
den in  some  adjacent  thicket,  and  quite 
escapes  the  searchlight  swing  of  my  field- 
glass.  I  am  by  this  time  too  tired  to  wade 
about  and  dislodge  him;  and  besides,  there 
would  be  little  gained  by  it,  after  identify- 
ing the  bird  by  his  chirp. 

As  I  reach  the  clearing  once  more,  I  am 
surprised  and  delighted  to  find  a  flock  of 
snow-buntings  in  possession  of  it,  perched 
by  dozens  in  the  brush-piles.  Pretty  little 

13  *93 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

fellows  are  these  buntings,  with  their  black 
heads  and  throats,  white  breasts  streaked 
with  black,  dusky  wings,  bright  yellow  bills, 
and  coal-black  legs  and  feet.  Away  they  go 
in  a  rustling  bunch,  as  I  step  into  the  clear- 
ing, their  infinitesimal  chirp  sounding  like 
a  chorus  of  tiny  fifes.  I  wonder  what 
brought  them  here  into  the  woods,  since 
they  are  commonly  frequenters  of  the  weedy 
pastures  and  the  cleared  hillsides  ?  Perhaps 
some  crumbs  from  the  woodchoppers'  lunch, 
long  since  scattered,  and  detected  by  these 
little  foragers  of  the  air,  heaven  knows  how. 
But  surely,  if  any  creatures  need  omniscient 
senses  to  guide  them  to  sustenance  in  this 
wilderness  of  snow,  it  is  the  delicate  and 
tender  and  timid  birds. 


194 


THE  RECORD  OF  THE  SNOW 

UNTIL  the  snow  comes  the  book  of  nature 
lacks  an  index.  You  may  walk  for  days  in 
succession  through  familiar  fields  and  woods 
without  suspecting  the  existence  all  about 
you  of  scores  of  timid  wild  creatures,  whose 
habit  is  to  sleep  by  day,  or  who  retreat  noise- 
lessly at  your  approach  to  places  of  cunning 
concealment.  It  is  marvelous  at  what  a  dis- 
tance the  slight  vibration  of  the  ground 
under  the  human  foot  can  be  detected  by  the 
delicate,  fear-quickened  senses  of  the  little 
inhabitants  of  the  woods  and  fields.  I  some- 
times fancy  that  they  can  hear  me  coming 
almost  as  far  away  as  a  boy  can  hear  a  train 
of  cars  when  he  kneels  down  and  lays  his 
ear  to  the  rails.  If,  therefore,  you  live  in  a 
thickly  settled  part  of  the  country,  where  the 
wild  creatures  are  few  in  number  and  con- 
stantly harassed  and  terrified,  you  will  be 
apt  to  think — until  the  snow  comes — that 
your  neighborhood  is  entirely  deserted  by 
the  wilder  small  birds  and  animals.  You 
'95 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

never  see  them  when  you  take  your  rambles, 
nor  is  there  any  evidence  to  the  unaccus- 
tomed eye  that  they  have  been  there  before 
you. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  these  sub- 
urban and  much  traversed  sections  of  coun- 
try are  still  peopled,  as  a  rule,  by  a  goodly 
number  of  their  former  small  inhabitants. 
As  a  proof  of  this  fact,  take  a  walk  two  or 
three  days  after  the  first  considerable  snow- 
fall of  the  winter.  You  will  be  astonished 
to  find  that  this  apparently  soundless  and 
motionless  wilderness,  this  little  desert  of 
scrub  oaks  and  pines,  is  fairly  populous  with 
small  and  active  folk,  who  have  plainly  re- 
corded their  goings  and  comings  on  the  soft, 
white  surface  of  the  snow.  Your  supposedly 
blank  book  proves  to  be  a  volume  of  most 
varied  and  interesting  contents,  of  which  a 
comprehensive  index  lies  before  you.  In  all 
directions  you  behold  the  telltale,  wander- 
ing pathways  of  birds,  squirrels,  foxes, 
skunks,  and  mice.  In  certain  spots  it  would 
almost  seem  as  if  there  had  been  a  carnival, 
a  sort  of  winter  fair  or  congress  of  sports, 
to  which  all  the  wood-folk  of  that  section 
had  flocked,  so  numerous  and  varied  and 
196 


The  Record  of  the  Snow 

intricately  interlaced  are  the  tracks  of  the 
birds  and  foor-footed  creatures.  Such  a 
medley  of  claws  and  paws !  See,  here  is  the 
path  made  by  a  whole  bevy  of  quail,  as  they 
crossed  the  little  clearing,  "bunched"  and 
huddled  together,  so  that  their  entire  track 
is  scarcely  six  inches  wide.  The  snow  is 
trodden  into  a  kind  of  fine  lacework  where 
they  passed.  They  were  probably  on  the 
run,  as  the  quail  seldom  moves  about  at  all 
save  in  a  perpetual  fright  and  haste  after 
the  breeding  season  is  over.  It  is  wonder- 
ful, for  instance,  how  fast  they  will  run  be- 
fore a  trailing  dog,  keeping  him  on  a  con- 
stant crouching,  gliding  trot  for  fifteen  or 
twenty  minutes,  before  he  finally  overtakes 
them  along  the  hot  scent  and  "points"  them 
or  puts  them  to  flight.  These  birds  were 
not  pursued,  but  they  were  running,  as  may 
be  seen  from  the  occasional  scrape  of  an  ex- 
tended and  balancing  wing,  and  the  length 
of  the  stride,  where  one  of  the  bevy  has  for 
a  moment  strayed  a  little  out  of  the  file. 
I  suppose  no  sportsman  would  think  it  worth 
while  to  go  gunning  in  these  well-scoured 
woods,  so  near  the  factories  and  the  back 
yards  of  the  little  houses  where  the  oper- 
197 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

atives  live;  yet  it  would  be  no  small  sport 
to  locate  that  bevy  of  birds  with  a  good  dog, 
scatter  them  in  these  fairly  open  scrub  oak 
patches,  and  try  a  few  stirring  shots  upon 
the  wing,  as  the  singles  and  doubles  whirred 
away  through  the  winter  sunshine. 

A  fox  has  been  across  the  bit  of  clearing, 
too — possibly  in  pursuit  of  the  quail,  as  his 
delicate,  clear-cut  track  parallels  theirs. 
Think  of  a  fox  prowling  about  within  a  bow- 
shot of  the  outermost  factory  of  a  city  of 
one  hundred  thousand  inhabitants !  not  com- 
ing there  by  venturesome  chance,  but  dwell- 
ing in  the  vicinity  the  year  round,  safely 
and  snugly  housed  beneath  some  splintered 
ledge  of  rocks.  He  has  this  distinct  reward 
of  his  temerity,  that  there  are,  as  it  were, 
two  strings  to  his  gastronomical  bow — the 
wild  creatures  of  his  natural  domain,  and 
the  henyards  and  chicken-coops  of  the  mill- 
hands,  under  the  very  shadow  of  the  en- 
croaching brushwood.  One  good,  fat  hen 
will  go  as  far  as  six  quail  or  forty  mice,  be 
it  remembered,  and  one  such  catch  means 
two  or  three  days  of  plenty  and  ease  for 
Reynard  in  his  burrow  under  the  rocks. 

You  may  know  a  fox  trail  in  the  snow  by 
198 


The  Record  of  the  Snow 

its  linear  exactness.  Every  footprint  is  di- 
rectly in  front  of  the  preceding,  as  if  Rey- 
nard walked  simply  on  two  legs,  set  in  the 
middle  of  his  body,  behind  and  before. 
How  he  manages  to  keep  four  feet  so  per- 
petually in  line  is  a  mystery.  It  must  be 
with  the  same  cunning,  conscious  intent  as 
the  Indian,  who  also  makes  as  narrow  and 
linear  and  inconspicuous  trail  as  possible 
through  the  winter  woods,  and  if  he  has  oc- 
casion to  come  back  that  way,  returns  in  his 
own  footsteps,  and  so  simply  reverses  the 
record. 

In  strong  contrast  with  the  cramped  and 
timorous  track  of  the  quail  is  the  bold,  free, 
snow-scattering  stride  of  a  solitary  old 
ruffed  grouse  cock,  who,  confident  in  his 
years  of  survival,  has  been  abroad  this  very 
morning,  and  has  lout  recently  crossed  the 
clearing,  at  right  angles  to  the  quail,  as  the 
freshness  of  his  track  shows.  He  does  not 
proceed  long  in  a  straight  line,  but  zigzags 
from  bush  to  bush,  and  tuft  to  tuft,  either 
for  variety  and  amusement,  or  in  search  of 
food.  He  moves  with  freedom  and  bold- 
ness, but  travels  slowly  and  with  many  lei- 
surely pauses.  If  we  should  follow  his  devi- 
199 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

ous  trail  for  fifty  rods  or  so,  no  doubt  we 
should  hear  him  burst  into  thunderous  flight 
far  ahead  and  out  of  sight,  for  he  is  too  old 
and  experienced  a  bird  to  be  caught  within 
gun-range  of  a  man,  whether  the  man  come 
stealing  on  like  a  hunter  or  not.  Once  let 
a  ruffed  grouse  attain  to  years  of  discretion 
— say  two  or  three  of  them — and  I  will  trust 
him,  particularly  if  he  be  a  male  bird,  to 
outwit  the  sportsman  in  any  locality.  So 
far  as  guns  and  dogs  are  concerned,  he  will 
survive  to  a  ripe  old  age;  but  I  am  not  so 
sure  of  his  ability  to  contend  against  the 
meager  nourishment  afforded  by  much- 
trodden,  cleared,  and  stripped  suburban 
woods,  where  scarcely  a  berry  or  any  wild 
fruit  ripens,  that  is  not  already  marked  and 
appropriated  in  advance  by  some  factory 
boy  or  girl. 

Everywhere  among  these  scrub  oaks  and 
pines  the  white  carpet  of  the  woods  is  intri- 
cately patterned  and  traced  by  the  tracks 
of  the  long-tailed  wood  mouse  and  the 
hardy,  cold-defying  red  squirrel.  Here  and 
there  you  will  see  a  little  brown-mouthed 
burrow  in  the  snow,  where  some  squirrel  has 
mined  for  a  pine  cone,  dragged  it  up,  and 
200 


The  Record  of  the  Snow 

devoured  the  edible  part  on  the  spot,  scatter- 
ing the  coffee-colored  chips  about  him  as 
he  eats.  Chipmunks,  apparently,  do  not  ven- 
ture forth  in  the  winter,  unless  some  unusu- 
ally warm  and  springlike  day  rouses  them 
from  their  nap  and  calls  them  forth  for  a 
bit  of  lunch  to  tide  them  over  until  April, 
but  the  red  squirrel  is  abroad  at  all  seasons 
and  in  all  weathers.  I  have  seem  him  break- 
fasting in  the  hemlocks,  when  the  thermom- 
eter registered  ten  degrees  below  zero,  and 
often  in  a  driving  snowstorm  his  welcom- 
ing, cheery  chatter  would  startle  me  as  I 
plunged  through  some  evergreen  clump, 
head  down  against  the  storm,  on  my  home- 
ward way. 

For  a  greater  part  of  the  winter  the  short- 
legged  skunk  continues  his  diligent,  preda- 
tory wading  through  the  snow.  You  will 
find  plenty  of  his  dotlike  tracks  in  these 
suburban  woods.  He  is  a  mighty  hunter, 
and  a  mightily  persevering  one,  despite  his 
dumpy,  Dutch  build  and  abbreviated  legs. 
In  the  snow  his  trail  looks  like  a  succession 
of  black-spotted  dice  cubes,  laid  side  by  side, 
so  short  and  positive  and  ploddingly  repe- 
titious are  his  steps.  It  seems  ridiculous 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

that  such  a  creature  can  toil  through  the 
woods,  and  seize  such  swift  prey  as  part- 
ridges and  rabbits.  Yet  he  does  it,  by  virtue 
of  his  marvelously  keen  senses,  the  silence 
and  stealthiness  of  his  approach,  and  the 
lightning-like  quickness  with  which  he 
makes  his  final  spring.  The  skunk  is  the 
snake  among  mammals,  silent,  slow-gliding, 
quick  as  lightning  in  the  fateful  stroke,  and 
inexorable  and  relentless  both  in  pursuit  and 
capture. 

We  are  fortunate  if  we  find  any  report  of 
the  rabbit  or  hare  in  this  snow  record.  Be- 
tween the  hunters  and  the  foxes  and  the 
boys  with  their  snares  and  traps,  there  is 
little  chance  for  these  delicate  and  savory 
creatures  to  survive.  Perhaps,  however,  we 
may  find  where  the  last  hare  in  the  woods 
has  leaped  timorously  across  the  moonlight 
on  his  broad,  furred  snowshoes.  What  a 
conspicuous  trail  he  leaves — each  padded 
hindfoot  half  as  broad  as  a  man's  hand.  But 
how  he  can  skim  over  the  surface  of  the 
snow,  while  other,  smaller-footed  creatures 
sink  and  flounder  in  it!  If  he  escapes  his 
many  winter  enemies,  he  may  thank  his 
snowshoes  and  his  protective  gift  of  speed. 


The  Record  of  the  Snow 

Some  day,  however,  when  he  is  dozing  in 
his  form,  under  the  genial  warmth  of  the 
midday  sun,  a  prowling  skunk,  driven  forth 
in  the  daylight  by  hunger,  will  creep  up  and 
get  him  by  the  tender  throat.  And  then, 
alas!  there  will  no  longer  be  a  last  hare  in 
the  woods. 


203 


A  DAY  ON  THE  CRUST 

THE  January  thaw  of  1887,  followed  by 
three  days  of  intense  and  bitter  cold,  made 
possible  for  me  a  certain  experience  to 
which  I  look  forward,  each  winter,  as 
eagerly  as  the  New  England  boy  to  Jack 
Frost's  first  skimming  over  of  his  favorite 
pond.  We  had  been  having  snowstorm 
after  snowstorm,  until  the  earth  was 
blanketed  more  than  three  feet  deep  on  a 
level,  and  those  who  ventured  out  on  snow- 
shoes  had  to  look  carefully  for  the  tops  of 
the  fences  lest  they  should  trip  over  them. 
Then  came  the  thaw,  and  after  it  the  big 
freeze,  leaving  us  with  a  crust  that  would 
hold  up  an  ox  everywhere  except  in  the 
woods. 

After  a  long  embargo  by  deep  and  heavy 
snow,  I  know  of  nothing  that  so  stirs  the 
pulses  of  an  out-door  lover  as  the  prospect 
of  a  grand  all-day's  walk  on  the  crust.  It 
is  like  a  parole  of  a  prisoner  of  war,  per- 
mitted, on  his  honor,  to  go  home  and  eat 
204 


A  Day  on  the  Crust 

his  Christmas  dinner.  Advocates  of  snow- 
shoes  may  claim  what  they  please;  I  know, 
and  every  tramper  knows,  that  carrying 
and  operating  these  obstructions  is  hard, 
heavy,  nerve-wearing  work,  not  to  be  com- 
pared in  physical  effect  with  the  light- 
footed  joy  of  tramping  over  elastic  ground, 
or  striding  across  miles  of  gleaming,  noise- 
less crust.  The  snowshoe  is  an  occasional 
convenience,  but  not  a  source  of  habitual 
pleasure.  I  speak  advisedly  and  from  ex- 
perience. There  are  a  hardy  and,  I  am 
tempted  to  say,  bigoted  few,  who  will  stretch 
their  elephantine  trails  across  our  snow- 
fields  every  winter,  and  count  it  sport;  but 
the  fact  that  their  number  does  not  increase 
from  year  to  year  is  sufficient  proof  that 
the  sport  requires  qualifications,  mental  and 
muscular,  not  vouchsafed  to  the  majority 
of  those  who  enjoy  out-of-door  sports. 

But  if  walking  over,  or  through,  soft 
snow  is  the  most  laborious  form  of  pedes- 
trianism  known  to  mankind,  a  walk  upon 
hard  snow  is  positively  unequaled  for  ease, 
exhilaration,  and  healthful  delight.  It  is 
really  next  to  becoming  a  Mercury  pro 
tempore  and  having  wings  under  one's  feet. 
205 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

No  marble  floor  was  ever  so  inviting  to 
the  feet,  or  as  easing  and  stimulating  to  the 
muscles,  as  a  far-stretching  expanse  of  crust 
under  a  blue  winter  sky.  It  is  so  crisp  and 
electric  under  foot,  so  full  of  spring  and 
elasticity,  so  graspable  and  firm,  with  just 
enough  friction  in  its  surface  to  hold  the 
foot  from  slipping  and  yet  not  detain  it. 
Everywhere  it  undulates  and  sparkles  be- 
fore one,  free  from  all  abrupt  inequalities, 
curving  over  the  fences,  and  sweeping  down 
into  deep  hollows  like  a  petrified  cataract. 
You  may  speed  along  with  swinging  stride, 
fearless  of  stumbling — over  stumps,  bushes, 
bowlders,  over  frozen  brooks  and  marshes 
no  longer  treacherous,  your  whole  body 
glowing  with  exercise,  and  your  soul  drink- 
ing in  the  strange  crystalline  beauty  of  the 
snow-bound  world. 

January  21,  1887,  was  a  memorable  day 
in  the  chronicles  of  my  crust-walks.  To 
begin  with,  the  crust  was  unusually  thick 
and  hard,  making  it  possible  to  penetrate 
on  its  surface  deep  into  the  woods,  and 
enabling  me  to  explore  familiar  haunts  that 
I  remembered  visiting  before  only  in  snow- 
less  tramps.  Then  the  day  was  perfect — 
206 


A  Day  on  the  Crust 

sky  clear  and  blue  as  June's,  and  temper- 
ature just  crisp  enough  to  make  the  blood 
spin,  without  nipping  ears  and  fingers.  Un- 
like most  winter  days,  this  January  day  re- 
mained cloudless  from  morning  till  night, 
and  the  sunshine  had  a  genial  and  prophetic 
brightness  that  thrilled  one's  heart  with  a 
faint  intimation  of  spring.  On  the  whole, 
it  was  such  a  day,  outwardly,  as  one  is 
tempted  to  mark  with  a  red  star  in  one's 
calendar,  as  memorable  simply  because  of 
its  charm  of  weather. 

I  left  my  house  at  eight  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  struck  out  like  a  man  re- 
lieved of  all  physical  limitations  whatso- 
ever. Fences  being  everywhere  obliterated, 
all  my  neighbors'  back  yards  were  as  free 
to  me  as  my  own,  and  I  forged  away  to  the 
eastward  over  melon-patches,  corn-fields, 
and  vineyards  that,  only  a  few  months  be- 
fore, were  as  sacredly  guarded  as  the  tombs 
of  Egyptian  kings.  Then  I  climbed  the 
broad,  white  ridge  behind  the  town,  and 
with  a  parting  look  at  clustered  roofs  and 
scattered  spires,  swung  over  the  crest  and 
down  the  eastern  slope  into  a  wilderness 
of  woods. 

207 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

Here  I  soon  found  traces  of  some  inhab- 
itants with  whom  I  am  tolerably  well  ac- 
quainted, and  who  never  seem  surprised  to 
meet  me  at  any  season  of  the  year.  The  red 
squirrel  had  been  chopping  up  pine-cones 
at  his  front  door,  and  had  left  the  chips  lying 
about,  for  all  the  world  like  a  woodcutter's 
litter.  I  saw  several  places  where  he  had 
tried  to  scratch  or  gnaw  through  the  thick 
crust,  but  it  had  proved  too  much  of  a  task 
for  him,  and  he  had  climbed  a  tree  to  see 
if  he  could  find  another  lodged  pine-cone. 
At  length  I  heard  him  barking  vigorously, 
and  soon  saw  the  flirt  of  his  tail  in  a  hem- 
lock-tree across  the  hollow.  He  scolded  me 
till  I  was  out  of  sight;  for  I  presume  he 
held  me  in  some  way  to  blame  for  the  fact 
that  nature  had  temporarily  locked  up  his 
provision  cellar  and  carried  off  the  key. 

As  I  walked  dryshod  up  the  bed  of  a 
buried  brook,  my  old  friend,  the  ruffed 
grouse  (the  farmer  boy's  "pa'tridge") 
sprang  up  on  thundering  wings  from  a 
clump  of  sumachs.  I  turned  aside  to  in- 
vestigate, and  found  that  the  poor  bird  had 
been  driven  by  hunger  to  make  a  meal  off 
the  astringent  sumach  berries,  their  purple 
208 


A  Day  on  the  Crust 

crumbs  being  scattered  here  and  there  over 
the  snow.  After  January  ist  the  sports- 
man may  be  sure  that  it  is  dangerous  to 
shoot  and  eat  the  ruffed  grouse,  for  in  the 
latter  part  of  winter  its  food  consists  largely 
of  buds  and  berries  that  embitter  and  poison 
its  flesh. 

When  I  came  to  the  river  I  found  the 
winter  lodges  of  the  muskrats  all  domed 
and  shining  with  the  crust.  Some  of  them 
looked  larger  than  a  haycock  under  the 
mass  of  snow  that  had  piled  upon  them. 
I  cut  a  stout  stick,  broke  down  through  the 
crust  to  the  top  of  one  of  them,  and  rapped 
sharply  on  the  roof.  Immediately  after- 
ward I  heard  a  faint  splash,  as  the  rats  in 
the  lodge  dived  from  their  warm  beds  into 
the  icy  waters  of  the  river. 

For  two  miles  I  followed  the  snow-cov- 
ered bed  of  the  river.  It  was  better  and 
more  novel  than  skating.  Then  I  branched 
off  to  the  north,  threading  my  way  through 
the  big  swamp  known  as  the  "Dug-way," 
and  had  the  good  fortune  to  see  a  hare  tak- 
ing a  nap  in  the  sun  under  the  roots  of  an 
upturned  stump.  He  heard  me  about  the 
same  time  that  I  saw  him,  and  was  off  with 

14  209 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

noiseless  bounds.  This  was  the  first  time 
I  had  ever  been  able  to  cross  the  Dug-way 
swamp  on  the  crust  without  breaking 
through. 

Noon  found  me  at  the  base  of  Saltash 
Mountain;  and  there  I  lay  down  on  the 
crust  and  ate  my  lunch  beside  the  bowl  of 
a  crystal  spring,  deep  down  as  a  little  well 
in  its  marbled  hollow. 

Swinging  around  in  a  wide  circle  to  the 
westward,  I  then  crossed  the  intervale 
marshes,  now  smooth  and  hard  as  a  tes- 
sellated floor.  In  the  distance  I  saw  a  fox 
nosing  and  digging  about  the  tops  of  some 
buried  tussocks.  The  hungry  fellow  knew 
all  too  well  that  there  were  fat  mice  housed 
beneath,  but  I  doubt  if  he  broke  his  fast 
on  them. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  I  caught  sight  once 
more  of  the  steeples  of  the  town,  rosy  with 
the  setting  sun.  The  glow  seemed  a  part 
of  my  own  being,  so  full  of  physical  exal- 
tation was  my  whole  body,  after  fifteen  miles 
of  glorious  tramping  on  the  roof  of  the 
snow.  I  was  not  the  least  bit  tired — not 
perceptibly  so,  at  any  rate — and  my  blood 
coursed  in  my  veins  with  full,  warm  cur- 


A  Day  on  the  Crust 

rents.  It  was  an  outdoor's  experience  to 
be  remembered  with  delight  and  gratitude — 
a  red-letter  day,  such  as  goes  into  the  jour- 
nal of  a  nature-lover  with  something  like 
a  heavenly  aroma  clinging  about  it,  a  fore- 
taste of  the  rapture  possible  for  us  when 
spirit  and  body  shall  at  last  be  in  perfect 
and  eternal  accord. 


ON  A  FOX  TRAIL 

SOMETHING  of  the  same  charm  that  lures 
the  explorer  and  the  pioneer  is  experienced 
by  the  lover  of  outdoor  life  in  following 
the  trail  of  a  fox  through  snow-covered 
country.  I  like  to  trace  an  unknown  brook 
to  its  headwaters,  or  follow  a  grass-grown 
road  until  it  fades  away,  perhaps,  in  some 
distant  upland  pasture,  or  "dwindles  into 
a  squirrel  track  and  runs  up  a  tree."  Such 
an  excursion  smacks  of  adventure  and  of 
constantly  renewed  surprise.  •  Expectation 
is  on  tiptoe  with  every  step;  one  is  sure  of 
something  fresh  and  new  all  the  way.  But 
best  of  all,  I  love  to  be  the  first  one  to  follow 
a  fox's  road — after  the  fox  himself.  He 
not  only  leads  you  through  a  succession  of 
the  choicest  bits  of  natural  scenery,  full  of 
unexpected  peeps  into  nature's  most  hidden 
corners,  but  makes  interesting  surprises  for 
you  in  the  report  of  his  own  adventures,  so 
vividly  recorded  in  the  snow. 

Go  forth  some  crisp  midwinter  morning 

212 


On  a  Fox  Trail 

after  a  recent  fall  of  snow,  and  take  a  tramp 
over  the  hills  beyond  the  town.  If  the  snow 
is  deep  enough  for  snowshoes  or  ski,  so 
much  the  better ;  you  will  have  the  pleasure 
of  foxtrailing  and  snowshoeing  to  boot. 
I  venture  to  say  that  you  will  not  have 
tramped  far  beyond  that  zone  of  civilization 
represented  by  the  outmost  hen  roosts  be- 
fore you  will  come  upon  the  wiry  trail  of 
a  fox.  Indeed,  it  will  probably  be  the  first 
indication  of  wild  life  you  encounter.  The 
fox  is  the  most  traveled  of  prowlers,  and 
will  often  cover  from  fifteen  to  twenty  miles 
in  a  night,  searching  for  something  to  stay 
his  perpetually  empty  stomach.  He  does 
most  of  his  foraging  at  night — not  all  of  it, 
as  some  writers  assume,  for  I  have  fre- 
quently seen  him  nosing  about  in  the  day- 
time. But  as  a  rule  his  long  hunting  trips 
are  taken  under  cover  of  darkness,  and  he 
spends  the  day  napping,  with  occasional 
brief  foraging  excursions  between  naps. 

This  slender,  dainty,  inconspicuous  trail, 
upon  which  we  have  chanced,  was  evidently 
made  last  night,  while  the  fox  was  out  hunt- 
ing for  his  breakfast.  It  leads  us  first 
toward  town  again,  and  is  soon  boldly  skirt- 
213 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

ing  the  fences  and  outbuildings  of  the  town 
dwellers,  as  if  Reynard  were  hopeful  at  least 
of  getting  a  sniff  of  plump,  huddling  poultry 
through  the  chinks  of  the  henhouse.  Two 
or  three  times  we  find  where  he  has  stopped 
and  raised  himself  on  his  hind  legs,  with  his 
forepaws  up  against  a  barn  or  hennery, 
hungrily  sniffing  at  the  toothsome  fowls 
within.  But  he  soon  drops  down  again  and 
trots  disconsolately  on  his  way,  convinced 
by  long  experience  that  a  fox  has  nothing 
to  hope  for  from  a  modern  henhouse.  Yet 
almost  every  night  he  is  attracted  to  it  like 
a  moth  to  a  candle,  and  wastes  much  valu- 
able time  at  the  outset  by  courting  the  im- 
possible. 

At  length,  however,  he  leads  away  again 
toward  the  open  fields,  and  we  follow  his 
straightening  trail  until  we  come  to  a  pas- 
ture full  of  rotting  stumps  and  logs.  Here 
the  fox  has  paused  to  dig  for  mice  in  the 
decayed  stumps  and  under  the  logs.  We 
sincerely  hope  that  the  poor  fellow  has 
picked  up  a  mouthful,  at  least,  to  strengthen 
him  for  his  midnight  work,  though  there  is 
no  evidence  of  any  tragedy  among  the  mice. 
The  fox  has  visited  nearly  all  the  likeliest 
214 


On  a  Fox  Trail 

stumps,  and  the  snow  is  covered  with  the 
chips  and  punk  which  he  has  torn  out  with 
teeth  and  claws.  He  must  have  spent  an 
hour  in  this  quest,  for  the  snow  is  every- 
where traced  with  his  zigzag  paths.  But  at 
last  he  gets  off  again  toward  the  woods, 
as  we  discover  by  making  a  detour  on  the 
other  side  of  the  stumpy  pasture. 

For  a  quarter  of  a  mile  his  track  repre- 
sents the  shortest  distance  between  two 
points.  See  how  carefully  he  places  one 
foot  in  front  of  another,  so  as  to  make  the 
narrowest  and  least  conspicuous  trail  pos- 
sible. The  Indian  must  have  learned  this 
trick  from  the  fox,  I  think.  It  is  an  evi- 
dence of  the  same  keen,  crafty  disposition. 

Now  we  are  in  the  woods,  with  the  fox 
track  winding  in  devious,  looplike  curves 
among  the  underbrush,  bending  toward 
every  snow-covered  bush  or  evergreen 
clump  where  a  grouse  or  rabbit  or  huddled 
bevy  of  quail  might  be  dozing.  How  softly 
and  noiselessly  those  dainty,  padded  feet 
must  have  fallen  in  the  feathery  snow !  No 
chance  of  any  creature's  overhearing  Rey- 
nard, as  he  comes  drifting  through  the 
woods  with  that  peculiar,  buoyant,  floating 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

motion  of  his  kind.  Other  senses  must  warn 
of  his  coming,  if  his  quarry  escapes. 

And  escape  it  does,  in  almost  every  in- 
stance, as  the  snow  record  proves.  Only 
once  or  twice  in  my  winter  walks  have  I 
found  any  indication  of  a  rabbit  or  grouse 
or  quail  caught  napping  and  captured  by  a 
fox.  The  smaller  woodland  creatures  seem 
to  be  possessed  of  an  extra  sense,  a  sort  of 
intuitive  detector  of  approaching  peril,  that 
warns  them,  even  when  they  are  sound 
asleep,  of  the  presence  of  their  natural  de- 
stroyers. There  seems  to  be  a  tiny  alarm 
clock  in  their  brains,  or  a  gong  of  nerves, 
with  sensitive  filaments  cast  off  in  all  direc- 
tions, which  detect  in  a  mysterious  way  the 
prowler's  approach  and  set  the  clapper 
a-striking. 

See  where  this  ruffed  grouse  was  lying 
in  a  bowl-shaped  cavity  of  snow,  the  sides 
of  which,  softened  by  the  warmth  of  the 
bird's  body,  have  now  frozen  to  crystalline 
hardness.  When  the  fox  was  still  twenty 
feet  away,  as  you  see  by  his  sudden  leap, 
the  sleeping  grouse  waked  up  and  sprang 
from  its  couch.  Observe  where  the  first 
stroke  of  the  strong  wings  beat  down  and 
216 


On  a  Fox  Trail 

scattered  the  snow.  How  plainly  you  can 
see  on  one  side  the  imprint  of  the  wing- 
tips!  The  bird  flushed  directly  out  of  its 
snow-saucer.  There  was  no  time  to  get  a 
running  start.  The  fox  may  have  been  in 
the  air  at  the  same  time  with  the  grouse. 
Time  and  again  I  have  seen  in  the  snow  the 
evidence  of  such  a  marvelous  escape.  The 
fox  rarely  captures  a  grouse,  though  he 
comes  so  tantalizingly  near  it  that  it  must 
make  him  grate  his  teeth  with  exasperation. 

Our  prowler  did  not  get  as  near  to  this 
bevy  of  quail  as  he  did  to  the  grouse.  You 
see  where  he  began  his  jumps.  The  quail 
were  standing  in  a  close-packed  circle,  tails 
in  and  heads  out.  That  is  the  way  the  cun- 
ning little  fellows  always  sleep,  presenting 
a  cordon  of  watchfulness  to  an  intruder 
who  might  approach  from  any  direction. 
Their  united  intuition  of  danger  detected 
Reynard  before  he  was  barely  in  sight  by 
moonlight,  and  with  a  whisk  and  a  whirr 
they  were  off  together  like  eddying  dead 
leaves. 

We  fancy  there  is  a  dejected  look  in  the 
fox's  trail,  as  it  leads  us  again  through  the 
woods  with  its  dotlike  footsteps.  Here  we 
217 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

wind  down  the  bank  of  a  most  picturesque 
ravine,  with  a  half -frozen  brook  tinkling  at 
the  bottom.  Who  but  a  fox  would  have 
guided  us  to  such  a  charmingly  wild,  remote 
spot  ?  Just  beyond  the  rocky  walls  approach 
each  other,  and  almost  shut  the  brook  in 
between  them.  There  is  just  room  along 
the  left  bank  for  us  to  follow  the  fox  trail 
up  the  gorge.  We  must  remember  this  spot 
next  summer — if  we  can  ever  find  it  again 
without  the  fox. 

Higher  and  higher  through  the  ascending 
valleys  and  over  the  spruce-clad  ridges  the 
fox  trail  leads  us,  till  we  are  fairly  on  the 
broad  shoulder  of  Saltash  Mountain.  Pres- 
ently we  come  out  on  a  bare  ridge  just 
below  the  summit,  and  get  a  grand,  sweep- 
ing view  of  snow-covered  landscape, 
bounded  by  the  lordly  Adirondacks  on  the 
west.  Here  we  must  let  the  fox  trail  cool, 
while  we  sit  down  and  eat  our  lunch  and 
drink  in  the  magnificent  prospect. 

As  we  rise  to  continue  our  way  over  the 
ridge,  down  whose  opposite  slope  the  fox 
trail  disappears,  a  moving  speck  appears 
against  the  snow-covered  side  of  a  stone 
wall,  nearly  two  miles  away  in  a  field  at  the 
218 


On  a  Fox  Trail 

foot  of  the  mountain.  The  smallest  dark- 
colored  object  in  that  vast,  dazzling  expanse 
of  snow  is  almost  startlingly  conspicuous. 
We  bring  a  fieldglass  to  bear  upon  the 
speck — and  behold!  it  develops  into  our 
wandering  fox.  He  has  just  finished  his 
long  hunt,  and  is  pawing  the  snow  from 
a  flat  rock  on  top  of  the  wall,  where  he  ex- 
pects to  lie  down  and  take  his  mid-day  nap 
in  the  sun.  We  take  turns  watching  him 
until  he  has  made  his  bed,  turned  about  five 
or  six  times  like  a  dog  preparing  to  lie  down 
in  a  cold  spot,  and  curled  himself  up  with 
his  great  bushy  tail  wrapped  around  him 
like  a  blanket.  There,  at  the  end  of  his 
devious  trail,  we  will  let  him  lie,  undis- 
turbed, hoping  that  by  this  time  his  hungry 
stomach  has  been  filled,  and  that  he  will 
enjoy  pleasant  dreams  until  darkness  again 
sets  him  wandering  over  the  white  world. 


219 


WINTER  WOODSMEN  AROUND 
BOSTON 

ALL  winter  long  the  sound  of  the  ax 
rings  in  the  frozen  New  England  woods; 
for  the  ax  is  about  the  only  tool  of  his 
trade  that  the  industrious  farmer  can  use, 
from  December  until  April.  Every  morn- 
ing you  may  see  him  driving  his  team 
toward  the  woods,  or  himself  plodding 
along  solitary  in  the  sled-track,  ax  on  shoul- 
der, while  the  sun  is  still  level  with  the 
tree-tops,  and  the  hoar-frost  is  gleaming  like 
diamond  dust  on  the  old  rail-fence.  There 
is  a  certain  gipsy  charm  about  this  daily 
going  to  the  woods  and  living  under  the 
tent  of  the  trees,  in  touch  with  the  mys- 
teries and  the  secrets  of  nature.  The  farmer 
becomes,  for  the  time,  a  woodsman,  a  pio- 
neer, an  adventurer,  and  the  wild  life  in 
him  revives,  as  if  it  had  been  merely 
drugged  by  more  prosaic  toil,  and  now 
starts  up  at  the  breath  of  the  woods,  keen, 
eager,  zestful,  and  quick  to  all  the  sights 
220 


Winter  Woodsmen  Around  Boston 

and  sounds  and  odors  and  feelings  that 
moved  his  ancestors  in  primitive  and  ad- 
venturous days.  The  man  of  the  fields  and 
the  barns  and  the  fireside  is  now  a  man 
of  the  woods  once  more,  Indian-like  in 
thought  and  action  and  habit.  His  step 
seems  lighter  and  more  stealthy,  in  the  twi- 
light of  the  trees,  and  his  eye  glances  about 
him,  more  alert,  suspicious,  and  penetrat- 
ing. The  ax  in  his  hand  is  the  only  type 
of  surviving  civilization,  and  even  that  he 
handles  as  if  it  were  gun  or  bow,  shift- 
ing it  from  shoulder  to  hand  and  from  hand 
to  shoulder,  as  he  walks,  and  often  pausing 
to  lean  upon  it,  while  at  work,  and  listen 
like  a  hunter  expecting  his  game.  I  have 
frequently  come  upon  the  wood-chopper  in 
my  winter  walks,  and,  unobserved,  seen 
him  stooping  to  taste  the  partridge  berry, 
or  drag  the  trailing  ground-pine,  like  a 
frost-bound  rope,  from  under  the  snow.  I 
have  seen  him  stand  motionless  as  a  pine 
trunk,  sniffing  the  air,  and  seeming  to  catch 
from  afar  some  hint  of  the  primitive  life 
from  which  civilization  has  not  yet  com- 
pletely weaned  him.  Again,  I  have  seen 
him  bending  over  the  prints  of  the  hare's 
221 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

snowshoes  in  a  tangled  thicket,  or,  leaving 
his  ax,  creep  upon  a  treed  partridge,  and 
perchance,  by  much  tiresome  craning  of  the 
neck,  get  a  glimpse  of  her  sitting  on  a 
hemlock  limb,  cunningly  hugged  against 
the  trunk  of  the  tree.  That  mere  sight  of 
the  bird  is  as  good  to  him  as  wine,  and  he 
goes  back  to  his  work  with  a  glowing  heart 
and  fingers  that  itch  for  a  gun. 

Every  farm,  no  matter  how  near  the  city, 
has,  commonly,  its  well-husbanded  wood-lot, 
that  yields  each  winter  some  harvest  of 
firewood  and  pleasant  occupation  to  the 
farmer.  Within  five  miles  of  the  gilded 
dome  of  the  Statehouse  in  Boston,  I  have 
found  woodchoppers  at  work,  apparently  as 
remote  and  unspoiled  by  culture  as  in  the 
backwoods  of  Maine.  Last  year  I  came 
upon  a  log  camp  in  a  hollow  of  the  woods  in 
Jamaica  Plain,  inhabited  by  four  men,  who 
were  lumbering  there,  within  sound  of  the 
Boston  clocks,  and  belted  all  about  by  lines 
of  electric  railway.  A  little  brook  trickled 
under  a  corduroy  bridge  in  front  of  their 
door,  and  there  on  a  rude  bench  they  sat, 
in  the  early  twilight,  smoking  their  pipes, 

222 


Winter  Woodsmen  Around  Boston 

and  looking  up  at  the  evening  star,  as  they 
might  have  watched  it  over  the  shoulder  of 
Katahdin,  or  where  the  moon  strikes  white 
on  the  great  bare  bluff  of  Monadnock. 

There  is  something  peculiarly  grateful,  to 
a  lover  of  nature  and  the  country,  in  these 
survivals  of  the  primitive  and  rural  under 
the  very  eaves  of  great  cities.  It  is  a  re- 
freshing evidence  of  the  persistency  and 
fecundity  of  nature.  After  all,  the  thor- 
oughly artificial  man,  with  his  refinements 
and  elaborate  appurtenances,  seems  only  an 
interloper.  The  country  still  ostracizes  the 
city,  and  seems  ever  on  the  point  of  oust- 
ing it  altogether,  and  taking  complete  pos- 
session of  the  land  again.  A  little  way  from 
the  close-packed  suburban  houses,  the 
birches  and  oaks  are  rapidly  covering  the 
gashed  knolls,  and  overshadowing  the  un- 
inhabited "avenues"  laid  out  by  premature 
speculators  in  real  estate.  Who  knows  but, 
in  a  few  years,  there  will  be  some  profitable 
lumbering  done  in  Roxbury  and  Dorchester 
and  Somerville,  as  now  in  Jamaica  Plain 
and  Quincy?  Perhaps  the  sound  of  the 
ax  may  again  penetrate  to  the  Statehouse 
223 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

itself,  and  some  farmer-legislator  be  able  to 
keep  tally  of  his  wood-pile,  in  the  pauses  of 
public  deliberation. 

What  rambler  does  not  love  the  sound  of 
the  ax,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  is  all 
the  time  robbing  him  of  his  best-loved  do- 
main ?  When  I  enter  the  crisp  woods,  on  a 
midwinter  day,  and  hear  its  cheerful,  ring- 
ing stroke  pervading  all  the  air,  like  the 
tap,  tap  of  a  great  woodpecker,  I  feel  a 
thrill  of  sympathy  and  companionship  with 
the  sturdy  man,  in  felt  leggings  and  flan- 
nel shirt,  who  is  hewing  out  the  chips  some- 
where yonder  with  his  bright  blade.  The 
whole  wood  echoes  with  his  firm  strokes, 
and  I  seem  to  hear  the  comfortable,  as- 
pirant ah,  ah,  with  which  he  registers  each 
blow  into  the  heart  of  the  tree.  It  is  hard 
to  trace  him  out,  for  the  sound  seems  to 
come  from  everywhere;  but  at  length,  try- 
ing this  way  and  that,  and  stopping  to  meas- 
ure the  growing  or  diminishing  volume  of 
the  sound,  as  one  stalks  a  drumming  par- 
tridge, I  get  his  direction,  and  soon  catch 
a  gleam  of  his  ax  through  the  trees.  As  I 
approach,  he  willingly  stops  his  work  to 
chat  with  me,  and  I  find,  as  I  trusted,  that 
224 


Winter  Woodsmen  Around  Boston 

there  is  some  real  bond  of  brotherhood  and 
sympathy  between  us — as  indeed  there  must 
always  be  between  two  men  who  meet  in 
the  woods,  else  they  would  not  have  met 
there. 

He  tells  me  that  he  is  hired  by  Mr.  So- 
and-so,  and  has  been  at  work  on  this  "chop- 
ping" now  for  two  months,  daily;  always 
working  alone,  and  lunching  by  himself 
in  the  woods  at  noon.  He  has  felled  and 
split  and  piled  about  thirty  cords,  and  be- 
gins to  experience  a  distinct  pride  in  this 
broad  amphitheater  among  the  trees,  which 
he  has  made  with  his  own  hands.  He  is 
paid  by  the  "job" — two  dollars  for  every 
cord  split  and  piled;  and  he  will  average  a 
cord  in  two  days.  It  is  poorly  paid  work, 
but  then  he  gets  his  board  and  lodging 
thrown  in,  and  thinks  it  right  that  he 
should  be  paid  by  the  job,  because  other- 
wise he  might  be  tempted  to  laziness,  alone 
there  in  the  woods.  He  shows  me  his  ax, 
proud  of  its  sharpness,  and  tells  me  how  he 
uses  it  to  make  reasonably  sure  that  the  tree 
shall  fall  as  he  wishes.  The  last  few  strokes, 
after  the  tree  begins  to  crack  and  sway, 
are  like  the  knocking  away  of  the  blocks 

15  225 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

when  a  vessel  is  to  be  launched.  He  never 
runs  when  a  tree  is  falling,  but  stands  close 
by  the  trunk,  and  looks  up,  so  that  in  an 
instant  he  may  step  this  way  or  that,  if  the 
top  leans  in  another  direction  than  he  ex- 
pected. 

He  told  me  that  he  had  no  need  of  a 
watch  to  give  him  the  time  of  day,  because 
he  clearly  heard  every  hour  struck  by  the 
big,  deep  bell  of  the  town  clock  in  Nepon- 
set,  and  on  the  other  side  the  Quincy  clocks 
kept  him  apprised,  unless  the  wind  blew  too 
strongly  from  the  north. 

Here  he  worked  in  sight  of  the  steeples 
of  Boston,  cording  wood  that  had  been 
growing  there  for  generations — a  true 
woodsman,  with  his  lunch  wrapped  in  brown 
paper,  and  no  better  acquainted  with  books, 
or  even  saloons,  than  a  young  farmer  in  the 
valley  of  the  Penobscot. 

After  I  left  him  I  climbed  a  hill  near  by, 
and  saw  the  thousand  plumes  of  smoke 
waving  over  New  England's  capital,  and 
marveled  at  the  contrast.  Here  indeed  was 
the  country  besieging  the  city,  and  well 
intrenched  in  her  outposts  yet.  The  ring 
of  the  rural  ax  mingled  with  the  clang  of 
226 


Winter  Woodsmen  Around  Boston 

the  metropolitan  fire  bells.  At  my  back  was 
a  man  cording  wood,  every  noon  eating  his 
lunch  out  of  brown  paper,  and  washing  it 
down  with  brown  water  from  a  swamp- 
draining  brook.  At  my  feet  lay  a  city  of  six 
hundred  thousand  inhabitants,  one  of  the 
greatest  sea  marts  on  the  American  Atlantic 
Coast,  spreading  its  roofs  and  spires  as  far 
as  the  eye  could  reach,  and  wearing  its  great 
industrial  cap  of  smoke  like  a  giant  at  the 
forge.  Where  is  the  invisible  line  drawn 
between  city  and  country?  At  what  point 
in  my  walk  do  I  cease  to  be  metropolitan 
and  become  rural?  What  a  strange  and 
striking  and  delightful  contrast  of  environ- 
ments ! — not  to  be  found  elsewhere  in  the 
world,  perhaps,  than  about  New  England's 
fortunately  situated  and  beautiful  capital. 


227 


A  PNEUMATIC  CALENDAR 

As  I  SIT  indoors,  this  fiercely  cold  Decem- 
ber day,  and  listen  to  that  peculiar  moaning 
and  crying  of  a  sharp  midwinter  wind,  the 
same  mood  comes  over  me  that  I  have 
known  again  and  again,  in  the  time  of  na- 
ture's testing  and  pleading — a  mood  of  sym- 
pathy and  longing  unspeakable,  akin  to 
tears — and  I  say  to  myself :  "Ah !  the  crying 
of  that  winter  wind.  I  should  know  what 
season  it  is,  if  I  were  waking  up,  with  eyes 
still  closed,  from  a  century's  sleep." 

Have  you  never  noticed  it — how  the 
sound  of  the  wind  betrays  the  season,  and 
sometimes  even  the  month,  of  the  year? 
You  may  sit  in  the  same  room  from  Jan- 
uary to  December,  with  the  air-currents 
striking  the  same  house-angles,  flowing 
through  the  same  branches  of  near-by  trees, 
sweeping  over  the  same  fields  or  up  the 
same  slope,  and  yet  what  different  wind- 
voices  and  wind-messages  you  will  hear,  as 
228 


A  Pneumatic  Calendar 

the  weeks  and  months  follow  one  another 
through  the  calendar  of  the  year! 

One  may  observe  the  same  phenomenon 
out-of-doors,  but  not  quite  so  distinctly  or 
completely  as  in  the  house,  because  the 
house  adds  its  own  peculiar  resonances  and 
resistances,  the  harpstrings  of  its  timbers, 
to  the  music  of  the  wind.  You  have  another 
instrument  in  your  orchestra,  another  voice 
— and  a  leading  voice — in  your  chorus,  when 
you  listen  indoors  to  the  vast  symphonies 
of  the  air. 

Here  in  this  little  upstairs  workshop  of 
mine,  where  I  have  sat  in  listening  mood 
through  many  days  and  seasons,  the  wind 
has  become  an  old  and  trusty  news-carrier 
to  me.  He  sweeps  about  the  house  and  taps 
at  my  shutter,  and  I  am  told  in  a  moment 
all  I  wish  to  know  about  the  world  I  love 
best — the  sincere  world  of  nature.  He  tells 
me  now,  on  this  edge  of  coldest  midwinter, 
that  nature  is  crying,  begging  to  be  let  out 
of  the  stocks  of  the  frost,  pleading,  weary- 
ing, for  spring.  I  have  never  heard  that 
distinct,  almost  human,  moaning  of  the  wind 
at  any  other  time.  It  begins  about  Christ- 
mas, and  lasts  until  the  ist  of  February, 
229 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

or  perhaps  a  week  longer,  according  as  the 
season  is  backward  or  advanced. 

Then,  suddenly,  my  pneumatic  messenger 
comes  to  the  window  with  a  fresh  bit  of 
news,  or  at  least  the  likeliest  of  rumors.  The 
February  wind  ceases  to  moan  and  cry.  Na- 
ture has  felt  a  strange,  involuntary  stirring 
in  her  prisoned  members,  and  suddenly  the 
air  becomes  full  of  questioning.  The  Feb- 
ruary wind  is  distinctly  interrogative.  Its 
voice  has  a  rising  inflection.  It  brings  you 
a  rumor,  yet  with  the  accent  of  conviction, 
as  one  may  put  a  question  in  such  a  way 
as  to  expect  and  admit  of  but  a  single  an- 
swer. 

The  first  premonition  of  spring  is  a  subtle 
tone  of  the  wind — perhaps  the  most  subtle 
of  any;  yet  a  trained  and  attentive  ear  can 
hardly  miss  or  mistake  it.  I  find  that  I 
have  a  different  mood,  at  once,  when  the 
February  wind  begins  to  blow.  Its  first 
whispering  may  come  in  the  middle  of 
the  night,  waking  me  for  gladness.  I  feel 
like  one  reprieved.  The  tension  is  gone; 
my  spirits  are  unbent  once  more  and  at 
ease.  The  wind  tells  me  that  nature,  who 
has  not  stirred  a  muscle  now  for  more  than 
230 


A  Pneumatic  Calendar 

a  month,  is  not  frozen  to  the  heart,  but 
feels  a  little  faintest  pulse-beat,  and  sends 
instant  news  of  it  to  her  friends. 

Almost  any  one  may  notice,  I  am  sure, 
a  difference  between  the  sounds  of  the  two 
winter  winds — for  there  are  two,  as  I 
have  indicated.  The  first  wind  is  pain- 
fully sharp  and  strained,  and  seems  pitched 
in  a  minor  key.  The  second  is  rounder  and 
fuller  and  more  resonant,  with  a  certain 
robust  quality,  and  rings  out  plainly  in  a 
major  key. 

The  March  wind,  we  might  say,  is  the 
answer  to  the  February  wind's  hopeful  ques- 
tion, the  absolute  and  jubilant  confirmation 
of  its  rumor.  The  March  wind  is  the  most 
positive  of  all  winds  in  the  pneumatic  cal- 
endar, and  no  one  questions  his  ability  to 
identify  it,  no  matter  under  what  circum- 
stances it  may  be  heard.  He  is  a  messenger, 
this  March  wind,  who  rides  bareback  and 
standing  a  string  of  a  hundred  horses,  and 
sweeps  more  marvelously  around  the  ring 
of  the  world  than  any  spangled  equestrian 
around  his  circle  of  sawdust.  The  roar  of 
his  passage  and  his  hearty,  reasssuring  shout 
make  the  house  rock;  and  when  he  is  off 
231 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

again  you  can  hear  him  telling  his  good 
news  in  the  next  town. 

April  brings  another  voice  to  my  win- 
dow— a  feminine  voice  now,  with  the  child- 
tone  still  lingering  in  it.  No  wind  in  all 
the  calendar  is  quite  so  soft  as  the  April 
wind — when  it  is  soft.  But  it  has  a  queru- 
lous tone  sometimes,  and  comes  beating  the 
window  as  with  impatient  child-hands.  It 
is  a  moody  wind,  with  all  the  changeable- 
ness  of  a  child's  temperament.  It  can  cry 
and  it  can  laugh;  and  there  is  nothing 
sweeter  or  more  delicious  in  all  the  gamut 
of  nature-sounds  than  the  rustling  laughter 
of  an  April  wind  among  the  first  tender 
green  leaves.  Once  listen  with  all  your  soul 
to  its  laughing  or  its  crying,  and  you  can 
never  mistake  the  voice  of  the  wind  that 
blows  in  the  month  of  showers. 

May  and  June  have  the  same  sweet,  con- 
stant, gentle,  unvarying  winds — feminine 
voices,  but  no  longer  childish,  querulous, 
nor  uncertain;  voices  that  hint  of  the  ripe- 
ness, the  poise,  and  stability  of  womanhood. 
These  winds  make  low,  even  sounds  about 
your  casement,  and  in  the  trees,  and  over 
the  grass,  all  day  long.  They  express  na- 
232 


A  Pneumatic  Calendar 

ture's  utter  contentment  and  peace.  They 
bring  me  news  of  God's  love  for  his  world 
and  his  ever-reminding  presence  in  it.  x 

July  and  August  are  almost  windless 
months.  You  must  listen  closely  for  your 
pneumatic  news-bringer  then,  save  when 
storm-breeding  heats  goad  him  to  fury.  He 
has  little  news  now,  save  to  whisper  across 
your  open  casement  that  all  is  well  with 
the  fruit-bearing  earth.  Yet  is  not  the  whis- 
per of  the  midsummer  wind  as  distinct  a 
voice,  to  those  who  hear  it,  as  any  in  the 
pneumatic  calendar?  It  surely  is  to  me.  I 
could  never  mistake  its  sound,  and  certainly 
not  its  touch.  That  evanescent  whisper, 
that  warm,  soft  touch  upon  the  cheek — who 
could  mistake  them  for  any  other  wind's 
that  blows  ? 

The  September  wind  is  bland  and  yet 
firm.  There  is  a  return  of  masculinity  in 
its  tone.  If  it  were  not  for  this  quality, 
one  might  mistake  the  sound  of  it  for  that 
of  the  May- June  wind.  It  rustles  the  leaves 
a  little  more  roughly ;  it  strikes,  in  its  occa- 
sionally boisterous  moods,  a  more  ringing 
note  out  of  the  house-timbers.  Sometimes 
there  is  a  faint  wail  in  it,  as  if  of  half- 
233 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

defined  regret  or  momentary  foreboding. 
But  on  the  whole  it  is  a  cheerfully  sober 
and  somewhat  quiet  wind,  that  one  loves 
to  listen  to  while  at  work  in  a  sunny  room. 

October's  wind  is  the  most  uniformly  sad 
of  all.  It  blows  in  irregular  puffs,  scatter- 
ing handfuls  of  golden  leaves  with  every 
sigh,  and  sometimes  shakes  your  window 
with  an  almost  fierce  and  morose  protest 
against  the  inevitable.  I  must  confess  that 
I  like  the  October  wind  least  of  all.  It  is 
too  petulant,  too  rebellious,  too  fitful.  It  is 
the  voice  of  nature's  first  unreasoning,  un- 
chastened  revolt  against  her  annual  testing 
and  renewal. 

With  November  comes  a  braver  and  saner 
wind,  whose  sound  I  like  right  well.  It 
is  the  voice  of  nature's  penitential  mood, 
strong,  sincere,  and  sweet.  It  roars  through 
the  trees,  and  strips  them  unhesitatingly  of 
their  faded  leaves — not  plucking  them  off 
in  little  reluctant,  petulant  handfuls,  as  did 
October's  gusts.  It  rattles  your  casement, 
and  tells  you  unequivocally  and  even  cheer- 
fully that  nature  is  making  ready  for  her 
winter  struggle,  and  that  you  must  promptly 
234 


A  Pneumatic  Calendar 

get  in  your  coal  and  put  on  your  weather- 
strips. 

So  have  I  been  dreaming  of  all  the  winds 
in  the  year,  while  I  sit  listening  to  the  moan 
of  this  December  weather.  Every  date  in 
my  pneumatic  calendar  has  been  checked 
off.  Have  they  not  strange,  subtle  voices, 
these  messengers  of  the  air?  Yet  I  trust 
that  other  interpreters  than  I  have  heard  the 
same  unfeigned  messages,  and  have  caught 
somewhat  of  that  inner  meaning  of  which 
Alice  Gary  hints  in  her  beautiful  lines : 

"Softly  among  the  limbs, 

Turning  the  leaves  of  hymns, 
I  heard  the  winds,  and  asked  if  God  were  there. 
No  voice  replied,  but  while  I  listening  stood, 
Sweet  peace  made  holy  hushes  through  the  wood." 


235 


WEATHER  COMPETITIONS 

IT  is  a  piece  of  that  delicious  wit,  which 
flavors  so  much  of  James  Russell  Lowell's 
writing,  when  he  alludes,  in  "My  Garden 
Acquaintance,"  to  the  meteorological  am- 
bitions with  which  country  people  are  so  apt 
to  be  bitten — how  each  aspires  to  be  hotter 
and  colder,  to  have  been  more  deeply 
snowed-up,  to  have  more  trees  and  larger 
blown  down,  than  his  neighbors.  But  I 
question  whether  Mr.  Lowell  should  have 
limited  this  delight  in  weather  competitions 
to  country  people ;  for  is  it  not  with  a  certain 
thrill  of  exultation  that  a  city  man  opens 
his  newspaper  on  a  bitter  cold  morning, 
and  reads  that  the  mercury  in  his  own 
metropolis  shrank  lower  by  a  degree  or 
two,  at  midnight,  than  in  any  other  great 
city  in  the  land?  That  was  a  distinct 
triumph  which  warms  his  heart  with  local 
pride,  and  in  consideration  of  which  he  is 
quite  content  to  have  his  ears  and  his  nose 
uncomfortably  pinched  as  he  hurries  out  to 
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Weather  Competitions 

catch  his  car.  Indeed,  I  have  often  won- 
dered why  newspapers  publish  this  contem- 
poraneous weather  news  at  all — which 
everybody  must  know  as  quickly  as  the 
editors — if  not  as  a  sort  of  local  challenge, 
a  clarion  cock-a-doodle-doo,  as  much  as  to 
say :  "Ho,  all  ye  worthy  contemporaries,  and 
inferior  communities  everywhere !  Observe 
how  we  are  freezing  [or  roasting].  Note 
the  extremity  of  our  temperature,  and  be 
duly  humbled  in  spirit !"  Americans,  at  any 
rate,  will  undergo  great  discomfort  and  in- 
convenience, as  regards  the  weather,  in  the 
most  cheerful  and  even  jubilant  frame  of 
mind,  provided  they  can  feel  that  they  have 
outdone,  meteorologically,  any  rival  com- 
munity. And  this  local  weather  pride  is 
fully  as  marked,  I  am  sure,  in  cities  as  in 
the  country. 

But  the  country  dweller,  nevertheless,  has 
more  to  be  proud  of,  in  respect  to  weather, 
than  the  city  dweller.  He  can  boast  of  ex- 
tremer  meteorological  phenomena,  and  more 
of  them,  than  the  metropolitan.  And  being 
denied  many  other  sources  of  local  pride 
in  which  city  folk  rejoice,  he  naturally  and 
properly  makes  much  of  his  weather.  It  is 
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Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

right  that  he  should  have,  as  it  were,  a  prior 
and  superior  claim  upon  all  sorts  of  meteor- 
ological marvels.  It  does  my  heart  good  to 
read,  in  country  newspapers,  in  the  dead  of 
winter  or  the  height  of  summer,  those  long, 
complacent  paragraphs  in  which  the  editor, 
and  his  correspondents  from  all  outlying 
hamlets  and  corners,  chronicle  the  notable 
feats  of  the  weather  of  the  week.  There  is 
an  unction  and  a  deep,  sweet,  unenvious 
satisfaction  about  this  class  of  literature,  that 
endear  to  me  at  all  seasons  the  columns  of 
the  country  weekly.  The  news  may  be  old — 
a  week  old,  perhaps,  when  it  reaches  the 
outermost  country  subscriber — but  it  is  none 
the  less  engrossing  to  all.  The  farmer, 
whose  ear  was  frozen,  very  likely,  three 
hours  before  the  editor  awoke  to  the  con- 
sciousness that  the  morning  of  the  day  on 
which  he  penned  his  item  was  cold,  will 
sit  and  pore  over  the  news  most  absorbedly, 
five  days  later,  in  the  midst  of  such  a  thaw 
that  the  plow  would  cut  a  furrow  as  easily 
as  in  April.  It  delights  him  as  the  record 
of  a  local  condition  which  was,  in  a  measure, 
unsurpassed  and  unprecedented — since  last 
January,  at  any  rate.  It  was  an  event,  in  a 
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Weather  Competitions 

state  of  affairs  where  most  events  in  the 
round  of  the  year  come  with  one  of  the  four 
winds,  or  are  telegraphed  by  lightning,  or 
heralded  by  the  drums  of  the  rain. 

Yes,  we  shall  have  to  admit  that  to  the 
country,  in  the  main,  belongs  the  epochal 
phenomena  of  the  weather.  We  must  still 
go  to  the  remote  hill-towns  for  all  our  me- 
teorological records  and  extraordinary  hap- 
penings, with  the  single  exception  of  sum- 
mer heat.  In  that  respect,  indeed,  the  city 
excels,  but  it  is  by  virtue  of  abnormal  con- 
ditions, through  which  man  artificially  in- 
tensifies a  phenomenon  of  nature.  A  hot 
wave  raises  the  temperature  of  New  York 
City  from  five  to  ten  degrees  above  that  of 
the  surrounding  country;  but  it  is  an  ad- 
ventitious supremacy,  due  to  intercepted 
air,  heated  bricks,  and  blistering  pavement. 
In  no  fair  weather  competitions  would  such 
conditions  be  allowed.  Let  the  temperature 
rise  or  fall  on  its  own  merits,  I  say.  And  it 
is  to  the  credit  of  the  average  metropolitan 
that  he  scorns  to  accept  his  mercurial  ad- 
vantage, in  summer,  as  any  legitimate  tri- 
umph over  his  country  neighbor. 

But  it  is  to  the  country  that  we  must 
239 


Where  Town  and  Country  Meet 

turn  for  fullest  zest  in  those  weather  com- 
petitions that  are  distinctively  nature's  own 
— the  great  snows  and  blows;  the  cold  that 
splits  the  trunks  of  trees  in  the  night  with  a 
crack  like  a  pistol  shot;  the  tremendous 
thunderstorms,  when  all  the  blackened  day 
is  tremulous  with  diffused  electricity,  and 
balls  of  fire  dart  hither  and  thither,  and  the 
incessant  roll  of  the  thunder  is  broken  only 
by  reverberating  crash  upon  crash;  the 
floods,  sweeping  away  farmhouses,  and 
barns,  and  chicken  coops  unwillingly  navi- 
gated by  cats;  the  earthquake  shocks — un- 
noticed in  the  city's  roar  and  jar — that  break 
windows  and  old-time  crockery,  and  send 
country  women  flying  outdoors  in  terror. 
These  are  events  in  which  the  competitive 
American  spirit  may  fitly  exult — fit  to  be 
chronicled  in  country  papers,  and  pasted 
into  scrapbooks,  and  recalled  from  season 
to  season  with  unwearied  local  pride. 

I  suppose  I  shall  never  forget  the  glory 
of  being  once  snowed-up  in  a  Vermont 
farmhouse,  and  having  to  help  cut  a  way 
out,  literally  after  the  fashion  of  Whittier's 
snow-bound  country  boys.  It  was  such  a 
triumph  over  those  of  my  own  family  who 
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Weather  Competitions 

remained  in  the  city  during  the  holidays, 
and  reported  a  snowfall  of  six  inches,  with 
three  days'  resultant  slush  and  slime !  How 
easy  it  is  for  one  who  has  passed  through 
such  an  experience  as  Whittier's  poem  de- 
scribes to  appreciate  the  zest  of  weather 
competitions  between  country  people,  in  dif- 
ferent States,  communities,  farms!  One 
never  forgets  nor  ceases  to  boast  of  being 
sno wed-up  to  the  eaves,  or  half-drowned  in 
a  freshet,  or  knocked  down  by  a  thunderbolt 
that  struck  only  thirty  feet  away,  or  miracu- 
lously preserved  in  a  tornado  that  uprooted 
great  trees  all  about.  Such  meteorological 
ambitions  and  rivalries  are,  after  all,  keener 
and  grander  and  more  wholesome  sources 
of  excitement  than  any  we  have  invented 
for  the  stimulus  of  the  city  dweller.  They 
have  in  them  an  element  of  the  cosmical  and 
stupendous;  they  are  signs  of  a  Divine 
Presence  in  nature;  and  when  one  pictures 
such  forces  contending  one  against  another, 
he  must  feel  as  if  he  were  witnessing  in 
some  sort  a  battle  of  the  ancient  gods. 


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